RE: We have met the Enemy and He is PowerPoint....

[brad kaste]

...Is the military brass getting swamped out with too much PowerPoint presentations?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?src=me&ref=gen

[Jagdflieger]

Ha, ha!

I just finished up a PPT presentation for tomorrow.

[gigabyte]

It's not just the military, believe me I spend more time "Tweaking" up PPT presentations for managers so they "Look Good" when they extole their virtues to the troops than I do actually performing my normal duties... I really liked that program one time now it is a royal PITA!

[TARPSBird]

This is what happens when the need to get "oohs and ahhs" with a glitzy dog-and-pony show becomes more important than presenting the information in an understandable format. If I were a senior officer and had to sit through some of those mind-numbing presentations I 'd tell 'em to go back to butcher-paper on an easel and keep it under 10 minutes. :d Which is about how long it takes for a cup of coffee to get cold - good rule of thumb for briefing any subject.

[Jagdflieger]

Amen to that. Briefed for years with butcher paper and markers. Of course I enjoyed it better when I didn't have to brief anything at all and just carried a rifle.

Still, PPT is leaps and bounds ahead of the old Harvard Graphics we struggled with back in the dark and dim days of the late 80s.

[Dain Arns]

Problem is everyone crams too much info into one slide in PowerPoint.
I doubt anyone could read that military briefing slide, in the article, even sitting in the front row.

It's okay to use a slide per topic or point. Keeps the presentation moving along at a fast clip.
Keep's your audiences attention up.

Plus, you can use bigger text that way. Make the presentation for the back row's benefit.
You should be able to clearly see and read any presentation standing at the back of the room.

[jhefner]

Still, PPT is leaps and bounds ahead of the old Harvard Graphics we struggled with back in the dark and dim days of the late 80s.

Hardvard Graphics, Lotus 1-2-3, and WordPerfect. They all look so primitive now; but were the neatest thing back then.

-James

[Dain Arns]

Some folks use PowerPoint in some pretty amazing ways:
PowerPoint Heaven: http://pptheaven.mvps.org/ (http://pptheaven.mvps.org/)

This clip was created using PowerPoint:


<object height="385" width="480">


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[Moparmike]

PPTs annoy the bejeezus out of me! At our quarterly plantwide meetings we get em, at our biweekly maitenance shutdown meetings we get em, annoying slideshows of internet pictures set to cheesy music pop up in my inbox everyday (think "people of walmart"). I can't stand em!
About their only redeeming feature is that they're good for a ten minute catnap after a twelve-hour shift...unless one of us cracks too loud of a snore, then the lights come back on... :d


I've been helping put together some training materials for new machine operators at work. It was recommended by our training coordinator that I use Powerpoint "to make a little slide show". I flat out said no, that isn't gonna happen.
I've got words along with screenshots from the machines...on paper. The operators can keep them for future reference. It surprised me, but many of em still have the handouts from my first episode (with handwritten notes of tips & shortcuts scribbled on em) and they use em often. Ya can't pull a PPT out of a folder and look at it later on if you're out on the production floor with no computer handy.


In high school English class, I had to prepare and deliver a few speeches in front of the class. Ten years later, my cousins were doing the same thing except all "modernized" with Powerpoint slideshows. I was talking TO the class, glancing at a few notes...they were talking at the projector screen, not addressing the people. Just reading words off the slides.
Sorry...progress it ain't!

[Bjoern]

I was talking TO the class, glancing at a few notes...they were talking at the projector screen, not addressing the people. Just reading words off the slides.
Sorry...progress it ain't!

That's their fault, not Powerpoint's.

Ideally, you're doing everything fom the top of your head and just glance over to the projected stuff once in a while.

Coupled with some proper general behavioural training for presentations, Powerpoint is by far the best tool for helping to communicate your points to your audience.

[Moparmike]

That's their fault, not Powerpoint's.

Ideally, you're doing everything fom the top of your head and just glance over to the projected stuff once in a while.

Coupled with some proper general behavioural training for presentations, Powerpoint is by far the best tool for helping to communicate your points to your audience.

You're 100% correct Bjoern! BUT...that's not how many of the teachers are instructing the kids anymore these days, at least in my part of the US. All these nice new high-tech tools need to be used properly...kids (and adults) need to be learned (yes, I said learned :P ) how to use them effectively.
A simple PPT thrown together with some info dug up on the internet is commonly "acceptable" in several of the local school districts here. I really feel for these kids when they get up into the university system and real world and complete there evolution into more of those mind-numbing "PowerPoint Masters" that do such a good job of putting me to sleep whenever I'm forced to sit through one.

My rant is starting to digress from Brad's original topic though...

This vid sums up my feelings on excessive and obnoxious Powerpoints.
8BP2HlNmRJ4

[Dain Arns]

That's their fault, not Powerpoint's.

Ideally, you're doing everything fom the top of your head and just glance over to the projected stuff once in a while.

Coupled with some proper general behavioural training for presentations, Powerpoint is by far the best tool for helping to communicate your points to your audience.

Agreed. Don't blame the tool, blame the builder.

[Dain Arns]

Mike, I understand and agree.

Even in 'Corporate America' the expectation is just to cut and paste from a document and then read word by word what is already on the screen.
Creativity is gone.

People loved my PP Presentations, probably because they never looked like anything they had ever seen before.
But 'selling' safety can be hard, I needed to be creative to make the point.

Instead of an hour's worth text crammed onto 6 slides, as one of our VP's did once (WHAT A HORRIBLE AND MIND NUMBING EXPERIENCE!), I would use 100 slides.
Didn't really take any longer to do, thanks to the 'Duplicate Slide' feature.
Swap a picture and some text, move on to the next point.

Talked about the subject, instead of re-reading what was on the screen.
Used text only to summarize, or enforce an idea or subject.
No damn bullet points.
Kept it simple. Kept it focused. Kept it fast paced. Kept the attention high.

Saw compliance go up.

I wish more folks could learn to do it properly. Have fun. Be creative to make the point.
but I still dread a lot of PP Presentations too.

Id love to show you all some of my presentations, but unfortunately they are the 'Intellectual Property' now of my former employer. :rolleyes:

[Dain Arns]

Baaaad PowerPoint!

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Gooood PowerPoint! (Kind of the way I make 'em)

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[Bjoern]

You're 100% correct Bjoern! BUT...that's not how many of the teachers are instructing the kids anymore these days, at least in my part of the US.

In my part of Europe, I got schooled in PP and had to use it for a few presentations back in school. In uni, I *had*(!) to take a class on the whole presentation thing.

Bottom line of the latter, by the way: K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid)

Don't overload your slides with text and colors. Remember: It's just for support, not for running the show. The center piece is *you*, not you slides!

[Lionheart]

Ive gone to iWork, which is the Apple version of Windows Office. Their version of PowerPoint is KeyNote. With Apple KeyNote, you have a few neat things you can do, as well as saving it as a quicktime movie, and I believe it saves as a PowerPoint, PPT file, but it will not have access to special effects in Office as it would in KeyNote (iWork).

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/iwork/#keynote-intro

I think I am in the early stages as like Mike Giggabyte 'was' in. Not burned out, only just starting to learn it.

Whats cool with Apple is that with KeyNote, you can get a neat little remote for your Mac that can not just run your media, but also KeyNote. And if that isnt enough, there is a KeyNote also for your iPhone (and I think iPod Touch) so you can remote control the 'next frame' commands via that route.

Pretty neat software technologies. I love those 'transition' effects and things. I would love to incorporate these into my planes, like pilot introductions, manuals, etc..


Bill

[djscoo]

I'm in a Microsoft Office 2007 class right now. It's required in the core curriculum, and it has actually been quite helpful. The software is surprisingly powerful, and the vast majority of users only utilize basic functionality. The class is in a computer lab, but the assignments are on a website that uses a virtual windows environment, and prompts and grades you as you work along.

[TeaSea]

If you've ever tried to put together the CONOPS for a particular phased operation, and display the various courses of action so that people understand them in a graphic form...particularly when you're dealing with maneuver...then you will understand the power of being able to put them together with a tool like PPT.

I can do it on a sandtable just as well, or a butcher board, or a blackboard....but I can't do it as fast.

Nor can I change it on the fly.

However, I will admit, that the ability to change it on the fly, means that people will...."change it on the fly"....leading you down a constant road of revisions. Whereas on other presentation means, they'll go with the best answer, not the perfect answer.

But these things, as has been pointed out already, have more to do with people in general, and how we operate, than the particular tools we use. As was stated previous....if you can throw it together quickly, you don't necessarily have to memorize it...which means you end up talking to a screen....when you had to put that whole thing together on butcher board, you tended to learn it, and speak to your audience.

BTW, after looking at the "offending" Afghan slide, I figured it out...wasn't that hard. Read it left to right and it shows you the relationships....and yes, they are complex.

Sometimes, complex things are, well, complex....you have to think.

[gigabyte]

Mike, I understand and agree.

Even in 'Corporate America' the expectation is just to cut and paste from a document and then read word by word what is already on the screen.
Creativity is gone.

People loved my PP Presentations, probably because they never looked like anything they had ever seen before.
But 'selling' safety can be hard, I needed to be creative to make the point.

Instead of an hour's worth text crammed onto 6 slides, as one of our VP's did once (WHAT A HORRIBLE AND MIND NUMBING EXPERIENCE!), I would use 100 slides.
Didn't really take any longer to do, thanks to the 'Duplicate Slide' feature.
Swap a picture and some text, move on to the next point.

Talked about the subject, instead of re-reading what was on the screen.
Used text only to summarize, or enforce an idea or subject.
No damn bullet points.
Kept it simple. Kept it focused. Kept it fast paced. Kept the attention high.

Saw compliance go up.

I wish more folks could learn to do it properly. Have fun. Be creative to make the point.
but I still dread a lot of PP Presentations too.

Id love to show you all some of my presentations, but unfortunately they are the 'Intellectual Property' now of my former employer. :rolleyes:

Dain, I suspect from what you say you have had some Presentation/Public Speaking training or just a great deal of experience, I have had both, so we are pretty much alike I suspect.

I have to agree with what others are saying in this thread, it is not the tool it is how it's used. I actually enjoy doing my own presentations and make use of "SOME" animations and special effects. My frustration comes from people (mostly managers) who have never had any training in how to properly present or prepare a presentation and they present me with a mess of slides that take me forever to turn into something that flows and makes sense. I have see some real ugly presentations in just the past week, with slides that had so much text that even the presenter was not able to read it without walking up to the screen...lol And some of the fonts they choose OMG 12 point script to present 3 lines of text...lol

My simple rules
- MAX! 6 lines per slide,
- ONE font for the whole presentation, change size, bold, italics, underline great but stick to one READABLE font,
- animations and special effects are used spareingly, they slow everything down, reveling a point at a time is fine, but spinning, flashing, fading, is just taking away from the point you are making,
- and above all KISS.

I learned all of that from my days of selling overhead projectors and the special coloured transparencies, we used to teach classes on how to prepare an EFFECTIVE presentation and the basics are still teh same, just the tools are different.

[Ken Stallings]

I think overall society needs to demand more simplicity. I have observed an increase in use of buzzwords to describe things and often I think it is done deliberately to impress through confusion and paint a picture that the writer knows more.

Truthfully, the definition of genius is the ability to articulate something with simplicity and clarity.

Law is one of the prime examples. The US Constitution can fit in a small pocket. Compare that with modern legislation! It can barely fit into a small crate!

In the military the rise of the Powerpoint Ranger was a modern cultural evolution and it reached such a terrible level that the Army's Command schools started to publish papers trying to remove the desire for labor-intensive slides!

I think it's actually gotten better, but it still needs simplification.

Ken

[tigisfat]

Any tool can be abused. I remember when people complained about typed papers in school because they "had no emotion".

I think it's great when someone skilled with powerpoint can present an engaging set of facts, enlighten their target audience and have fun doing it.

[Panther_99FS]

My Powerpoint Eval is current & I'm also current on all Powerpoint recurring training...:d