1 What's your favorite PPT horror story?

2 PowerPoint poisoning! An oldie, but goodie... http://reinout.vanrees.org/bc/powerpoint_poisoning.gif

3

1 What's your favorite PPT horror story?

 

One time, I did one for Harvard Law, and I forgot to add the pertinent information.  I got an "A" anyway.

4 I like the Gettysburg Address one.

5 Dang it.  Try this.

6 The only PPT I'm exposed to are at conferences and we just drink so much the night before that we fail to attend.

7 If I were proposing marriage to someone today, I'd use a Powerpoint presentation.  It would be cool flicking through the slides describing the features and benefits of a "yes" answer.  I would probably go heavy on the graphs and pie charts, and I'd have a question-and-answer session afterwards.

8 I'm in math.  PPT is impossible, we use "Beamer" and the presentations are in PDF.  Works pretty well, but the fancy tricks and wipes are hard enough that nobody tries them.

9 I kind of hate to knock PPT, since for several years, I made a VERY good living doing nothing more than making presentations. Not presenting them. Just making them. And once I'd made about half a dozen, i just recycled them over and over.

10 The Colonel could be reinstated if he stated it was his Muslim sensitivities that were offended by the PPT presentations.  Blah blah blah, Mohammed. blah blah blah Allah....you know the drill.

11 Hey Ace,

On some of the Conservative blogs, they have a link to Table Nine Chat .  It's a great place to be able to talk to other Conservatives and everyone there is extremely pleasant.

Hang out there (if you haven't already) and see what you think.  And if you like it, consider adding a link to it on your blog.

And, keep up the excellent work, sir.  You are a true American Patriot!

That coming from a moron, so take it for what it's worth.

12 Works pretty well, but the fancy tricks and wipes are hard enough that nobody tries them

I loathe hates and wipes in any presentation.  The point of the presentation (hopefully) is to present information in a clear and understandable manner.  Wipes, etc., do nothing but distract from what you are saying.  Admittedly, there are times when this is a feature not a bug.  Generally, though, as soon as the effects start, I stop paying attention. 

13 Was the Beck thing on CSPAN or is it just the other rally. All I see is a fat GWP yelling "yes we can".

14 What's your favorite PPT horror story?

I can tell you from personal experience, once a large organization goes to PPT the means becomes the end in a short time.

Especially among the more geekier of the presenters. They spend inordinate amounts of time making a flashy presentation and very little time actually going into the information that is to be presented

15 The PowerPoint disease is just a more malignant version of an earlier briefing disease. I was an RTO in an infantry battalion S3 shop for a couple of years in the late 80s. Same thing was in place, even in peacetime, except the technology and pace was different. Overhead projectors/slides instead of PP, and briefings weren't daily occurrences. Can't tell you how many times I got lassoed into running a damned slide machine for a briefing. Officers would spend more time loading the slide carousel with slides than doing the actual briefing. Critiques from up on high would relate more to the format of the slides than the content. Still, even with this decades-long horribly inefficient obsession with briefing form, the military bureaucracy is likely a hell of a lot more efficient than any other government agency.

16 Dammit...I just realized Ace didn't post this.

17 Is Ace working at Hot Air?

18 Try this for the Beck thing: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/295231-1

19 Thanks Brad

20 I once ran a multi-jurisdictional terror attack drill. The report I wrote afterwards was 12 pages covering the scenario, a twenty page after action report, 6 pages from the police department, and 12 pages from the fire department training officer all detailing lessons learned, weaknesses identified etc.
My companies response was to ask for a PPT presentation. No more than twenty slides, eight or nine lines per slide max, use plenty of pictures.
Bottom line was they were interested in a pretty package they could show the client, not what could be learned from the exercise.
Strangely I didn't work as hard on our drills after that.

21
in just to pad xbrat's comment count

22 The only worse job than briefing generals is briefing colonels

23 FWIW, I spent quite a bit of my Army time teaching, and so PPT was a very useful tool, essentially replacing the transparency slides that we'd previously used.

One of the really useful things that the Squadron Sergeant Major taught us was to never put more than eight lines or points on a transparency - that if you needed more than that, you hadn't really thought through your lesson.  This carried over to PPT, and I still apply it today when I teach CLE, generally to very favorable review.

24 they said it wasn't Admiral friendly Heh. That's funny.

25 Is Ace working at Hot Air?

Ace?  Work?

26 One of my Lt.'s had a disc from his Officer Training Course that was labeled Power Point Rangers. There was a joke that Field Officers wouldn't know how to wipe there ass without a PPT presentation.

27

i.e. not enough colors and too many words and numbers.

To be fair, you really have to see it from the viewer's point of view.  You can't just think about the message you're trying to get across. You have to think about the viewer and whether they can follow along at your pace and whether they can hold their interest.

What's the point of a B/W text presentation?  They can just read a memo.

28

I remember when PPT became really en vogue. My boss at the time gathered us all together and proudly showed off his new toy. I ruined it by saying "It took all that for you to tell us we needed to keep the bathrooms cleaner and to tighten things up around here?"

Not surprisingly, I wasn't ever his favorite.........

29 I did a slide once that was just text, black and white.

I always did B&W text presentations at IBM and talked the presentation.  The slides were simply an outline to keep the oral presentation on track.

The whole problem with things like PPT is the freaking charts take on a life of their own (even when they're complete bullshit) and morph into some weird science gospel like the tablets Moses came down off the mountain with.

30 Perhaps PPT is subject to the same rules as good graphic design... the best designers know what to leave out. With the abundant software tools available to virtually anyone these days, the temptation to bloat is nearly irresistible.

31 What's the point of a B/W text presentation?  They can just read a memo.

That's the thing though...they won't read the memo.

B&W forces them to concentrate more on what you're really saying.  Its like Ansel Adams shooting only in B&W film.

32 the freaking charts take on a life of their own (even when they're complete bullshit) and morph into some weird science gospel like the tablets Moses came down off the mountain with. I can picture a cartoon of Moses, coming down Mt. Ararat with a pair of tablet computers and a laser pointer. He's delivering focus group results on the Ten Commandments.

33 I should note that most of the presentations I did were for printing and binding. Takeaways, as it were. You can cram a lot more information on one of those. I'd NEVER do a stand-up with those type slides. And you are pretty much forced to go with B/W for those. But the point is to convey information, not put on a cartoon.

34 A good PPT is like a sculpture of an elephant. Take a big block and chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

35

Although Power Point is much maligned, it's not so much the tool as is how that tool is wielded.

As far back as 2000, I had certain power point "rules" or a style guide that I had my people follow. It was simple stuff involving graphs (simple primary colors), fonts (make them all the same - Arial preferred) and how many bullet points you could have on a slide (5 Max and any more than that and I had to sign off on it). One thing my rules did was that it forced clarity of thought in what process was being described.

I also liked to keep the presentation under 15 slides but never more than 20.

If the info was so dense and so important, then that detailed part was all included in the corresponding handout. All presentations always had a takeaway handout that went into more detail with a cover that looked like the cover page in the same style as the presentation it was for; that helped people remember what handout went with what presentation.

I'd have thought that the rest of the world would have figured that out all that by now.

36 I love meetings where somebody puts up a PP and then stands there and reads it verbatim.

37 I'd have thought that the rest of the world would have figured that out all that by now. Not hardly. If you read the linked article, the really interesting thing is the Colonel really called out the staff bloat that is going on. It amazes me just how many people are in theater doing stuff that really has no connection to finding and killing the Taliban.

38 Has any, uhhhh, "reputable" source reported the relieve? I'm having trouble reading that article through this plate-glass window over here...

39 Oh how I hate getting e-mail with .ppt attachments. I don't use .ppt, don't want to, and can't open it easily without installing a bunch of Microsuck cruft on my box. Fortunately I seldom get them.

40 It amazes me just how many people are in theater doing stuff that really has no connection to finding and killing the Taliban.

When I read some of the crap that it going on in today's military with JAG and with the PC shit I realized that today's military leadership is totally fucked.

It takes a good all out war to get rid of the non-combat oriented assholes. We haven't had one of those in a while.

After we evacuated the last American troop from Vietnam and we were on our way back to the States the Captain decided we needed a "seabag inspection". I got gigged for not having my winter clothing, including P-Coat in my locker. This on a cruise to SE Asia where the injection temperature was over 90°F!

I knew then that "war's over chicken shit starts".

41 PPT's are evil for your in box too. I don't know how many times I get an email and there is a PPT sitting in there MB's in size which then does not allow me to send or receive any other email until it is cleared out (Navy as very small limits for your email). Hey, check out this attachment!!

42 How about a little love for me?

43 BTW, this Col was relieved "for cause" that means he may as well put in his papers. He is toast. He doesn't even get the shit to go with his shingle.

44 It amazes me just how many people are in theater doing stuff that really has no connection to finding and killing the Taliban.

Posted by: XBradTC at August 28, 2010 06:24 PM (X0Ona)

As I used to say: "overhead is death".

Back in my mortgage banking days, all we had to do was make money and stay out of trouble, and even then we took our jobs seriously, but lives were never on the line.

Some of the things I hear about that go on in the military really bother me, simply because I'm almost positive it gets kids killed.

45 Orwell, I don't use PPT or any Microsoft Office software on my computer. I went to OpenOffice.org and downloaded their freeware. Works just as well, and doesn't have all the crap.

46 You'll be able to help your family and yourself financially as well as assist in repatriating my nation's monies, if you just look at this following attachment: nigeria_fund_offer_rootkit.ppt

47 Works just as well, and doesn't have all the crap.

Will their stuff open Micro-snot docs?

48 Orwell @48- He's a 61 year old Reservist who was on a staff, not a command. There's not a hell of a lot they can do to him. He wasn't exactly a "comer."

49 Vic, not only can you open MS Office crap, you can save it in their formats as well. Or just about any other.

50 Oh yes, I have OpenOffice. Nice package if a little slow, and it avoids Microsuck. I was merely remembering how you might try to open a .ppt attachment and if you hadn't told your box otherwise it might open some Microsuck crippleware on your machine, the kind that offers you 30 wonderful days of blissful use and then refuse to work again.

51 @53 I think you meant that for Vic, yes, XBradTC?

52 Yeah, Vic... OpenOffice will handle nearly any document you can throw at it. Like VLC does for video files.

53 Posted by: XBradTC at August 28, 2010 06:37 PM (X0Ona)

I may have to check that out. I am still running Office 2000 that I bought back in 2000 for work related stuff. It is getting kind of dated now.

54 OpenOffice is the way to go if you aren't forced to use Microsnot. And it's available on every platform out there, for free; as in beer.

55 I'm suing the U. S. military for using Powerpoint because I hold the patent to pushing buttons on keyboards.

56 I'm suing the U. S. military for using Powerpoint because I hold the patent to pushing buttons on keyboards.

Posted by: Paul Allen at August 28, 2010 06:44 PM (AZGON)

Oh yeah, you're a piker. I am the one that drove Chrysler into bankruptcy and almost got Ford too.

57
Is there any doubt that Crist ((D) , I mean come on really)  would vote FOR ObamaCare?


He must really think we're idiots.

58 Thanks for the plug. Your blog is a must read for me every day, so I was shocked to see your comments on our blog. Thanks a million.

59 Col. Sellin sounds like an interesting character......

Dr. Lawrence Sellin, PhD, Professor of Biophysics at Oulu University in Finland.

60
O/T

Unofficial Park Police estimate of 300,000 at the Glenn Beck rally, whereas, the esteemed Reverend Al Sharpton managed to draw the princely number of 3000. 

The bitter clingers outdrew by a ratioof 100:1?  That's just not fair, and a recount is in order, or at least a puff piece in the WoPo or New York Times refuting the numbers,  and explaining why Rev Al's rally was more substantive and meaningful because he is black. 

61 Oh yeah, you're a piker. I am the one that drove Chrysler into bankruptcy and almost got Ford too. Posted by: Robert Kearns What, like I didn't do my best? No respect for your elders.

62 Unofficial Park Police estimate of 300,000 at the Glenn Beck rally, whereas, the esteemed Reverend Al Sharpton managed to draw the princely number of 3000. Okay, we've got the copy ready. "Today civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton drew thousands to protest the virtually all white male disruption Glenn Beck held at the Lincoln Memorial. Beck drew dozens to his event which is rumored to have been staged for financial gain." Sound about right?

63 Hmmmm.

"What's your favorite PPT horror story?"

I don't know if it's a horror story or anything but once I was given the responsibility for creating and maintaining a set of about 100 PPT presentations.  I'm a computer programmer so I ditched doing this nonsense manually and set up an application that would assemble, collate and correlate the information, update existing PPT or create new ones with appropriate charts and then spent the rest of my time either doing other automation projects or goofing off.

Honestly I see very few instances where you have to really create a new PPT that can't be assembled from parts.  Once you've analyzed the mountain of PPT presentations you can usually find commonalities within them, deconstruct them into individual components of either single slides or groups of slides and then create the automation necessary to update them or assemble the components into brand new presentations.

IMO the best way to deal with massive overflows of information is to present it in 3D mapspace using a scripted system.  I imagine that quite a bit of information that would concern a US Army general in the field would involve people, places and stuff ... all of which is located on a map somewhere.  Imagine a 3D map of say Afghanistan area including surrounding countries.  Imagine that you can either zoom out for a macro viewpoint or zoom in for a micro viewpoint.

Imagine that the scripting of said "flyover" presentation is built from a readily available source such as either XML formatted data -or- even PPT presentations with appropriate metadata tags.  Imagine that this scripted view of
the data can be interrupted or paused and the presenting officer can select pre-existing data not directly associated with the current presentation but that has been assembled and entered into the relevant database.  So an officer could be doing a presentation on current force dispositions and potential hostile actions or influences around Kabul but take a moment to answer a relevant query by the receiving officers about force dispositions in areas elsewhere or perhaps drone flight patterns as an overlay over the map.

Note: no virtual reality nonsense required.  Just a license for an existing 3D engine that has a simple scripting engine.

...

*shrug* not very original really.  I believe the railroad corporations have similar software packages that show the status of every train and allows executives to query trains as they travel across the 3D map.  A 2D isometric or even 2D top down view, along with other views, are easily done for those uncomfortable with 3D.

64 What, like I didn't do my best? No respect for your elders.

Posted by: Ralph Nader at August 28, 2010 06:51 PM (AZGON)

All you did was get rid of that shitty oil leaking Corvair. No big loss.

65

the esteemed Reverend Al Sharpton managed to draw the princely number of 3000. 

Posted by: Fish at August 28, 2010 06:50 PM (v1gw3)

I was wondering how it was possible for the Fox correspondant to get so close to the action.

 

66
Sound about right?

Posted by: the MFM at August 28, 2010 06:54 PM (AZGON)

Mr Rich, you're thoroughly unpredictable.

67
Edward Tufte, the author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and many other books on the presentation of information, summed up his thoughts on PowerPoint in his Wired essay "PowerPoint Is Evil":

http://tinyurl.com/kqnr

This isn't just some fogey grumbling about technology. Tufte is a master of computer-generated graphics to present complex information; but in his experience, forcing information into a set of bullet points erodes information and confines thinking. As he put it, "Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely." Tufte also points out that Stalin was the first to employ bullet points in a presentation, though he used them literally.

68

I was wondering how it was possible for the Fox correspondant to get so close to the action.

 Posted by: ErikW at August 28, 2010 06:56 PM (2BQU0)

A simply matter of having Julie Banderas flash her rather ample ta-ta's at the males, and they boned out which flushed their brains of blood and allowed the criminal reporters to get in close and personal.

69 You know what was cool about the Corvair? It was about the closest Detroit came to a mass production car with a mid-engine design. All the "unsafe" performance was mostly related to drivers unschooled in how to handle a vehicle with the weight so distributed.

70
Brad, we're a Microsoft-free household. We use Ubuntu Linux (I know, I know, kumbaya and all that, but it's a good release).

True story: Between 1995 and 2005, I wrote several books on Linux for a publisher that will remain nameless. This publisher, which was pushing its Linux line of books, demanded that the manuscripts be submitted in Microsoft Word format. So, I wrote them using OpenOffice (which had just come out) and exported them into .doc format; the publisher was cool with that, and I never had to pollute my machine with an MS product.

71 When you practice your presentation in front of one person the day before you really have to take the stage you can learn just how crappy it is and have time to fix it.

72

     Having just retired from the US military with 30 years USMC & NC National Guard, I can indeed feel the Col's pain.  I used to watch the Company Commander put together ppt's for combat operations that took longer to make and brief than the dagon op took.

 

 

 

73 All the "unsafe" performance was mostly related to drivers unschooled in how to handle a vehicle with the weight so distributed.

I once had a blowout on the rear left tire of a Corvair while on the curved section of highway 101 entrance ramp from the San Mateo Bridge. The POS got sideways in the lane in the middle of morning rush traffic headed into San Francisco.

I got it straightened out without mangling another car but it was dicey. 

But I agree, Nader was a lying POS and still is.

74

A simply matter of having Julie Banderas flash her rather ample ta-ta's at the males, and they boned out which flushed their brains of blood and allowed the criminal reporters to get in close and personal.

Posted by: Fish at August 28, 2010 06:58 PM (v1gw3)

Julie Banderas is 10x hotter than Megyn Kelly.

I challenge anyone who disagrees to produce nekkid photos of Julie and Megyn to resolve the difference.

75 I wrote them using OpenOffice (which had just come out) and exported them into .doc format; the publisher was cool with that, and I never had to pollute my machine with an MS product. Woot!

76 Curmudgeon 7, I remember the good old days when an op order was written on one of those little green notebooks from the supply room.

77 @80 I had a class taught by an automotive engineer in college, about automotive design, and he explained this to us about the Corvair and the mid-engine design. Perhaps he was talking out of his ass, but I trust him more than Nader. At any rate, suspension and steering systems back then on any vehicle were far less forgiving than today's. Nowadays I doubt that the placement of the engine is nearly as important to driving characteristics.

78 At any rate, suspension and steering systems back then on any vehicle were far less forgiving than today's.

I always thought the Corvair handled very well. My older brother had one as well back before I got out of High School. We used to take it out on dirt roads and hit the curves hard for practice, then do the same thing on paved roads.

It took a lot to make it slide but it would handle great right up until you pushed it hard enough to get that heavy rear end to go around. Once that happened it was Katy-Bar-The-Door.

Of course, all that goes out the window when a rear tire blows out in the middle of a curve and you are accelerating to blend into traffic.

79 As far as the moron doing the relieving, all I can say is Hab SoSlI' Quch!

After all, it's the thought that counts.

80

What used to kill me my last few years in the Marines was not only the sheer number of PPT briefs I had to endure on every imaginable mliitary subject, but the fact that the handouts were...wait for it...just a printed out version of the PPT presentation.

Made my fucking teeth itch.

81 We used to make every slide as a separate MacDrawPro file, with an attached document detailing the sources, signoffs, and briefing dates. Powerpoint just made it easier to give briefings with less thought and content. The real problem is decay in the traditional span of control granted to general officers and staff. They get involved in everything because today's comms allows it - this destroys the culture of trust and authority of the NCOs - who are the soul of the military.

82 Makes me long for my Marine Corps days, when there were two computers on the entire base, and the printers weighed about 800 lbs apiece.  Want a different font?  Tough, you got 132 characters per line, 6 lines per vertical inch, fixed spacing and all caps, even if you were a General.  We were still decades from private individuals actually owning a computer.

The rifles were wood and steel, too.

83 I refused to learn PowerPoint until I finally ended up in Battalion S-3. Fuckin' hate it, hate the bullshit staff and headquarters culture, and the fact it enables a lot of officers who fucking fail at life and need to be doing something else for a living.

If you want to read the perfect guide to how to streamline a battalion headquarters for field operations, read The Battle for Hunger Hill by then-Lieutenant Colonel, now Lieutenant General Daniel P. Bolger.

84 Spence Ackerman wrote this story.

Take with mountains of salt.

85 The Battle for Hunger Hill, Battery Amazon, 1 copy for range, on my position, by my command - thanks for the tip SGT Dan

86 The colonel's rant brought back memories of MNF-I HQ in Baghdad.  In an OPT, I had somebody tell me "We do all our planning in PowerPoint."  Yeah, and that's been working real well, hasn't it Sparky?

Sounds similar to my current Navy command.

I'm good at PPT, but I hate what the military does with it.

87 PPT is not the issue.  He complained, didn't get satisfaction and bitched.  He's so super-smart!  Knows better than his superiors and colleagues!  Oh, and he works for a rigid, chain-of-command oriented organization which explains why there might be confusion over his reprimand.  F-me.

The Colonel should've STFU and colored.  Last thing the guys in Afghanistan need is scrutiny over bureaucratic crap that every friggin' company deals with constantly.

88 I work in a no shit real time command center and we have too much going on for slides.

However I do get asked, once a week, to explain the data. As long as I can stand up in front of the 3 star and say what happened to drive the numbers it's cool.

Hell, last week I even said, "People fuck up. It happens." He was cool with it.

PPvet is missing the point of the rant. The O-6 in question is a guard/reservist and a true volunteer. He's reached the top of his promotability (given his career field) and is almost bullet-proof. It's exactly guys like him who need to be saying this.

Xbrad, please don't get me started on military/management 'buzzwords'. I keep a list. 'Enterprise' is my current favorite.

89

The Crash of the Powerpoint Briefing

 * Sung to the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
(And with all regrets to Gordon LightfootÂ…)

  The legend lives on from the Fifth Corps on down
of the thirty gig Powerpoint briefing
The software its said never gives up its dead
when the God of Electrons grows angry
With officers galore, maybe a hundred or more
it was said that no one could outbrief them
The good ACE and crew was a bone to be chewed
when the God of Electrons came calling

  The ACE was the pride of the German countryside
when they left Wuerzberg bound for Tuzla
As MI units go, they were bigger than most
with a battlecaptain well seasoned
Major Holden in lead, quite a large man indeed
and a master with mouse and a laptop
In charge of the ACE, he set a fast pace
and demanded his graphics and bitmaps

The fingers on keyboards made a tattletale sound,
and the Bubbavision TV only flickered.
The network was taxed, always pushed to its max,
but the Term Shop was bound and determined.
The dawns came late and the sleep had to wait,
with the turnover of April upon them.
When mid-April came, it was analysis time,
or the G-2'd be left with no briefings.

When BUB time came round, LTC Rapp came in
sayin' "Fellas, the room is a'fillin".
At six PM, the main harddrive crashed,
he said "fellas it's been good to know ya".
SFC Taylor called down, "we got generals coming in"
and the good ACE and crew was in peril
And later that night while the troops ran in a fright,
came the crash of the Powerpoint briefing.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
when the briefings turn minutes to hours?
The G-2, they say, would've made Colonel that day
if he'd put ten less meg on the hard drive.
He might have compressed, or he might have zipped files,
He might have enlarged his server.
But all that remains is the faces and names
of the spouses, the sons and the daughters

In a musty old tent in Tuzla they prayed,
In the room that houses the Great Bubba.
The churchbell chimed til it rang twenty-nine times,
for each gig in the Powerpoint briefing.
The legend lives on from the Fifth Corps on down,
of the thirty gig Powerpoint briefing.
The software they said, never gives up her dead
when the God of Electrons grows hungry.

90 I need an iPhone 4 Converter software to convert DivX videos to iphone format. Come to AVI to iPhone 4 Converter, MPEG to iPhone 4, MKV to iPhone 4, iPhone 4 Converter for Mac Guide on how to copy dvd to ipad.have a try it.

91

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