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"The Enemy is PowerPoint"
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May 24, 2010 |
| “We Have
Seen The Enemy and He is Powerpoint”
is what the New York Times headline read
on April 27, 2010. Finally, the #1
newspaper in America has come |
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to understand what we have known for
years: PowerPoint can be deadly. “Death by
Powerpoint” can now be directly linked to
terrorism. By the way, the chart is an attempt
to capture the Counter Intelligence strategy to
gain stability in Afghanistan. As General
Stanley A. McChrystal unveiled the chart, he
added “When we understand this chart – we will
have won the war.” His comment got big laughs
from the people at the briefing and it should
have. He’ll be headlining the Improv in Omaha
next weekend. This chart is a joke. No one can
understand this chart – it’s too complicated.
The real problem the chart illustrates is that
not everything belongs in one chart. If I made a
chart of how the Federal Government works, do
you think that would be an easy chart to
understand? Of course not. A Federal Government
Chart would be worse than the Afghan Stability
Chart and our government almost works. Any
problem that is multi-dimensional can NOT be
summed up easily in a 2-D chart. So why even
make this chart? Because it looks impressive. It
makes their task look hard. We get it – it’s
hard. It’s not going to get fixed overnight.
It’s going to take a while. You are doing the
best you can. We get it! Why punish some poor
PowerPoint generating corporal with the job of
representing a 10 dimensional problem with 500
interdependent relationships on an 8 x 10 screen
using a font of 2? This kind of job is what is
demoralizing our troops. They spend countless
hours compiling PowerPoint slide after
Powerpoint slide in order to tell you “what
they’ve done, what they’re doing now, and what
they plan on doing”. Military folks tell me
that every briefing (which is frequently a daily
occurrence) is in PowerPoint. We will soon start
to see our troops suffering from PPTS –
PowerPoint Stress Syndrome. It is characterized
by a constant feeling of panic causing your life
to flash before your eyes – in PowerPoint! How
do we stop this? It’s easy – stop making charts
like the above. Keep it Simple. Still don’t get
it? Here are some more examples of the type of
charts NOT to use. Keep in mind, these are all
REAL charts. I did not make these up…
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| What
the hell is this graph trying to tell
you? The only question it answers is
“What would the Rocky Mountains look
like if you were on acid.”
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The above chart
proves that when you put ALL the “Basics” in one
chart they become “Complicated”. This chart is
trying to sum up the “basics” of hazard
response. The true hazard of this chart is
trying to understand it.
| This last
chart is a Bad PowerPoint combination
platter: Too Many graphics AND Too Many
acronyms. If you added Too Many truly
obnoxious animations and this would be
the perfect storm of bad PowerPoint.
In summary: Think of a PowerPoint slide
like a USA Today chart: Simple. One
idea. Minimum words. Pretty colors.
Anything more and you are committing an
act of PowerPoint terrorism. |
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