Career death by PowerPoint
I’ve received countless emails in the last week or so about Army Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin and his subsequent firing over a screed he sent to United Press International disparaging the mindless use of PowerPoint presentations in his shop at the International Joint Command in Afghanistan. You can read the whole complaint at The Army Times.
The Army Times also interviewed Colonel Sellin.
“I don’t hate PowerPoint. It’s a useful tool,” he said. “But it can be a crutch as a substitute for thinking. It’s too easy to produce a lot of slides and create volume, not quality. You really think that with a lot of detailed slides that you’re making progress, when you are actually not.”
The only thing I know about PowerPoint is that’s the format that ConcreteBob uses to send me pictures of hot chicks. And my wife busts me every time.
But I do know there’s some weird stuff going on in the Army these days – GI Korea from ROK Drop wrote to tell us that TAH is blocked from Army computers in Afghanistan because we’re “too political”. I’d like to know what they mean by that. Colonel Sellin was officially punished for not clearing his rant through the PAO before sending it to UPI, so I figure that we’re being blocked for some reason other than being “too political”.
Category: Military issues
Even before I got out of the Navy over 10 years ago, the powers that be in nuke land were getting concerned over the quality versus quantity of training and the seemingly overreliance on PowerPoint and other electronic media. Pretty bells and whistles are no substitute for actual learning. Any idiot can run a laptop and projector. Only when someone actually KNOWS what the hell they’re talking about and can explain it without a spaghetti bowl diagram does real learning take place.
Powerpoint is THE favorite in my business area. And as usual, most of the presenters read from the screen…
I remember a presentation from one of these business guru types, who was trying to make business conference formats less mind-numbing. I don’t remember all of it, but I remember the part about over-used and over-worked words in presentations. These words are generally used to make the person giving the presentation appear more knowlegeable, but the effect ends up being that of cluttering the presentation with needless verbage. The one word out of that list that stuck with me is “utilize.” Businesses “utilize” everything; they seldom seem to simply “use” anything. Get the drift?
To this day, when I’m sitting in a conference and I hear the word “utilize,” I cringe… : )
COL Sellin is obviously a .ppt n00b. If you can’t crank out 30 slides in under 30 minutes you need to just quit already.
Just to let you know I’ve been reading TAH everyday out here in Afghanistan with no problems. the only blog I have trouble with is Freerangeinternational
I can get to TAH at Edwards AFB, but not Neptunus Lex or Murdoc.
I think some, if not all, is simply that our government is cyber-retarded and can’t screen sites properly. For instance why did I have to submit a request for access to J. Tillman’s website when they are one of the premier PPE guys? Or Optrel who make some of the best welding helmets (PPE) in the world? Because the government can’t properly do what others can, and lowest bid means they either A)Hire people/companies that can’t do it either or B)enact contracts that don’t include doing it right, or doing it all.
Kalroy