Can’t we say ‘that’s all folks’ to PowerPoint presentations?
It saps the will of the toughest combat leaders.
It burdens even the most highly conditioned elite soldier.
It causes immense suffering, agony, sleeplessness and fear.
It consumes priceless time, energy and attention. And if something isn’t done to stop it, it will eat away at our Army like a cancer from within, ultimately jeopardizing our ability to execute our primary mission — to defend our nation and win our nation’s battles on the ground.
I am referring, of course, to Microsoft PowerPoint — perhaps the deadliest weapon ever deployed against our Army. It is fifth column software that destroys us from within.
The first step is to admit we have a problem. Someone has to say it — we’re hooked. We have PPBD — PowerPoint Briefing Dependence — and unless we break the vicious cycle of addiction, our finest NCOs and officers will continue to succumb to that most fearsome of enemies, “the slide.”
It started out innocently enough. We used to get our orders verbally; maybe a mimeographed op order if we commanded elements (even now I get a little jolt from that ditto smell). Then came the index cards — just experimenting, mind you, just to “jot a few things down.”
Then we moved on to stronger stuff — butcher paper. Desk-side flip shows. Just “talking” our main points. No big deal. Let me just write this up for you.
But soon butcher paper didn’t give us the high we’d come to expect after graduating from staff courses and instructor training. We’d learned to do the “flip” with acetate film and jury-rigged bits of cardboard on our overhead projectors, and we liked it. The sixth point of performance became “Check screen for white light and extinguish.”
But the buzz got harder and harder to find. Some wise guys who had computers at home started showing off around the War Colleges and Joint Staff, bringing their “presentations” to the briefing, scoring points with the high-and-mighty. Now, all the generals and admirals, the colonels and the captains, started telling their staffs, “I want that.”
Pretty soon, PowerPoint images were showing up in our doctrinal publications. How many times have we seen that same image of the captain and the sergeant, looking manfully off into the distance? Pointing out an enemy observation post?
The addiction filtered down the chain, to brigade, then battalion, then company.
And still we chase that buzz, importing GIFs and JPEGs, sound and animation. From the halls of the Pentagon, the conference rooms of the CinCs, the company day rooms, you can hear the addicted moan, “Just let me print out these slides.”
Well I say, no more slides! How many hours of labor have gone into VIP briefings? Staff recommendations? Do we really need 100 possible courses of action cost-benefit analyzed and PowerPoint-ified, especially when we’re only going to recommend one or two? Does the boss really need to know why Course of Action No. 57 (“Surrender to the enemy and make paper dolls”) didn’t make the cut? And does it merit a slide?
I’m proposing a quixotic campaign against the received wisdom. I’m an apostate staff puke, and proud of it! Information operations? Try information overload.
But it wasn’t always thus. The Combined Chiefs’ order to Gen. Eisenhower to commence offensive operations in Europe is 30 words long. The Gettysburg Address, perhaps the finest piece of oratory in American history, is 266 words long and takes 90 seconds to recite.
Is a Humvee with a flat tire so much more important that it needs to be briefed?
The slide is supposed to be an aid to a briefing, not the focus of it. PowerPoint is supposed to be a tool — not an additional skill identifier.
Somewhere along the line we lost sight of this simple fact: The brief is a means, not an end.
Let’s kick the PowerPoint habit. Let’s discriminate, judge, assess. Let’s focus on what’s useful, productive and important, and get rid of the electronic cholesterol that is clogging the system. And for Pete’s sake, stop copying to me every slide show that comes your way.
Well, I feel better. Now let me get back to updating the weekly slide update before the quarterly slide update suspense hits. Otherwise, I’ll never get around to the annual slide-update slides.
By Russell A. Burgos