Power Point

[Deleted member 48126]

Does anyone else get upset at the fact that their life (aka job) revolves around PowerPoint? Usually in between every slide I find myself on the forum looking at rifles and new threads. If this is the inappropriate place to post this please move.

 

[Willys46]

Does anyone else get upset at the fact that their life (aka job) revolves around PowerPoint? Usually in between every slide I find myself on the forum looking at rifles and new threads. If this is the inappropriate place to post this please move.

PowerPoint will be the death of me! I read a article about three months ago that was talking about the military had stopped using it along with scientist. The found if you made people walk up to a white board and have them fill it out inferno too people, they actually had to know what they were talking about and the people were much more evolved.

If you want to put a client to sleep whip out a 23 page PowerPoint and start flipping pages! That's how they tell us to go communicate with our customers. The only time my customers will ever see a Powerpint is when the CEO comes for a ride along.

Next biggest waste of time ........the dreaded conference call.

 

[Bravo 4]

I read a article about three months ago that was talking about the military had stopped using it along with scientist. The found if you made people walk up to a white board and have them fill it out inferno too people, they actually had to know what they were talking about and the people were much more evolved.

Totally false, from what i have seen they have went the opposite way. I have been a military instructor for the past few years and have gone to about a dozen various courses during this time as well and most everything is death by PowerPoint. I do have some leeway, usually anything weapons or tactics related gets taught out of the classroom or gets a good hands on practical exercise. The whole crawl-walk-run way of instruction.

 

[Willys46]

It maybe false. Here is the article I was referencing Physicists, Generals And CEOs Agree: Ditch The PowerPoint : All Tech Considered : NPR

What's crazy is it was the first time I agreed with a NPR radio host!

 

[Bravo 4]

I agree as well, we have a problem with guys (fellow instructors) not being able to have a discussion or open questions about certain subjects being taught. I mean Army wide. I have had/heard several so called instructors answer questions with things like "What does it matter?" or "Who gives a sh@t?" or "Because it just freaking does!" when asked questions that expunge deeper into something on a PowerPoint that they really have no idea about the subject they are supposed to be teaching. They pretty much lose credibility with me after that and I stop listening. Also after about slide #2 my mind starts drifting. Soldiers want and need to be challenged! However, today it seems like the higher ups want to take the easy way out with sitting in a class or online training crap...and I mean crap! Last year alone I completed over 100 hours of online training, non of which benifited me, or that I can remember for that matter. Some of it is like that Obama-care crap and the websites have so many flaws that they send you an email telling you what to so if this or that happens and then have a call center to assist and make corrections while you negotiate the course. Our government has gone off their **** rockers!
Rant over, mission complete.

 

[FEENIX]

PP has it's merit. It does not really matter what the communication continuum used but if you cannot get your point across in 30 minutes, you have lost your audience, esp. when the topic is boring. lightbulb

 

[Deleted member 48126]

PowerPoint is good for getting about 55 mins worth of information across and that's it. It's also good as an update briefing format for information that changes daily so 10 slides or less with bottom line up front info. Friday in my class, we spent 10 hours covering 270 slides on 1 topic! My instructor would get to certain slides that he was passionate about and spend 20 minutes on them meanwhile by the course standard we still had to finish the slide show. It was miserable.

 

[FEENIX]

PowerPoint is good for getting about 55 mins worth of information across and that's it. It's also good as an update briefing format for information that changes daily so 10 slides or less with bottom line up front info. Friday in my class, we spent 10 hours covering 270 slides on 1 topic! My instructor would get to certain slides that he was passionate about and spend 20 minutes on them meanwhile by the course standard we still had to finish the slide show. It was miserable.

That's the problem, they're (???) using them as a teleprompter instead of a note guide. I remember doing a consulting thesis a few years ago for my masters were my team had an hour to brief the CEO/executives of 3 major companies --- 4 of us briefed with only 1 slide and 10 minutes each and the rest for Q&A. One of the CEOs was a retired Admiral and said "thanks for keeping me awake".

 

[PhulesAu]

What's worse , is I'm just sitting here nodding in agreement. My peeve is the conference calls.

 

[Outlaw6.0]

Man, there's some opinions here I can surely relate to. I just conducted a PP yesterday morning & am 7mins from a conf call...

Keep it short, sweet & to the point. I add funny/interesting pictures related to my presentation in the slides of the PP. It seems to get a few chuckles & helps keep people focused (at least watching for the next image).

It seems there is always a side track on conference calls... as the presenter, you can fix it, if not.... yeah, LRH here I come

Here's the latest "funny" I added to a PP yesterday.






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