I really thought I was going to get some posting done this week. Lots to write about with the Tour De France, Steinbrenner dying, and other events going on.
But alas it was not to be. Maybe tomorrow. I’m locking my blackberry in my safe and not touching it all day. Say hello to my voice mail.
Hopefull when this week is over-and the team size drops again, I will have more of a reasonable life again. One can dream can’t he?
“PowerPoint makes us stupid.”
“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
In General McMaster’s view, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not a chart like the spaghetti graphic [of our Afghan strategy], which was first uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel, but rigid lists of bullet points (in, say, a presentation on a conflict’s causes) that take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” General McMaster said. Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers — referred to as PowerPoint Rangers — in the daily preparation of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington.
Even more dangerous, the article implies, is that it leads to bad decision-making, with serious consequences:
Commanders say that the slides impart less information than a five-page paper can hold, and that they relieve the briefer of the need to polish writing to convey an analytic, persuasive point. Imagine lawyers presenting arguments before the Supreme Court in slides instead of legal briefs.