The Powerpoint epidemy
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[2010] U.S. Officer In Afghanistan Mows Down PowerPoint Rangers | Danger Room
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-29896" title="powerpoint-spaghetti" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/08/powerpoint-spaghetti1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="465" /> Are you an Aspirin-gulping staff officer who suffers migraines because of the military’s over-reliance on PowerPoint presentations? Ever wanted to walk out of a pointless briefing because PowerPoint substitutes for critical thinking? A colonel at NATO headquarters in Kabul is your new patron saint. In an epic rant published by United Press International , Lawrence Sellin, an Army reserve colonel on his second tour in Afghanistan, rages against the dying of the light amongst his fellow staff officers. Sellin serves on the staff of the International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command, or IJC, the organization formed last year to oversee the war’s day-to-day operations.
“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter. The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[2010] Enemy Lurks in Briefings on Afghan War - PowerPoint
Consider it a new version of death by PowerPoint . The NATO command in Afghanistan has fired a staff officer who publicly criticized its interminable briefings , its over-reliance on Microsoft’s slide-show program, and what he considered its crushing bureaucracy. Army Col.
[2010] Colonel Kicked Out of Afghanistan for Anti-PowerPoint Rant | Danger Room
[2010] Pentagon’s Craziest PowerPoint Slide Revealed | Danger Room
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-30672" title="atl_wall_chart" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart-660x429.jpg" alt="" width="660" height="429" /> And you thought winning the Afghanistan war was tough. Try building the Army’s new armored vehicle.
[2010] Pentagon’s 193 Mind-Numbing Cyber Security Regs | Danger Room
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-32786" title="ia_policychart-1" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/10/ia_policychart-1.jpg" alt="" width="660" /> Some people may find it strange that the Defense Department, which helped create the internet, is having so much trouble securing its networks. Those people have not seen this mind-numbing, 2-foot-long chart , outlining the 193 documents that govern the activities of the Pentagon’s geek squads. Developed by the DASD CIIA (that’s the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber, Identity & Information Assurance), the goal of the chart is to “capture the tremendous breadth of applicable policies, some of which many IA practitioners may not even be aware, in a helpful organizational scheme.”
[2010] "PowerPoint, c'est du cinéma"
Que le cadre sup' qui ne s'est jamais assoupi, après déjeuner, dans l'ambiance tamisée d'une réunion PowerPoint, qui ne s'est jamais arraché les cheveux à résumer une année de travail en dix slides (diapositives) et cinquante bullet points (points forts), jette le premier rétroprojecteur à Franck Frommer . Ce quinquagénaire, ex-journaliste amoureux de la langue française, est tombé dans la communication d'entreprise il y a une vingtaine d'années, au sein d'un grand groupe financier international . Il y a découvert l'outil dont on ne saurait se passer sous peine de déchoir de son statut de salarié modèle : PowerPoint, le logiciel Microsoft de présentation visuelle destiné à accompagner les exposés oraux. Il a constaté son omniprésence. Et sa vacuité, à l'en croire .