12 Aug The Powerpoint Slide for Reconstructing Iraq (and No, I’m Not Kidding)
Courtesy of Arms & Influence, here is the actual Powerpoint slide created by Joint Task Force IV to depict the political outcome that was supposed to result from the invasion of Iraq:
Apparently, Powerpoint presentations were the norm during the Defense Department’s “planning” for the Iraq war. From Thomas Ricks’ new book, Fiasco:
[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn’t get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: “It’s quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides.”
That reliance on slides rather than formal written orders seemed to some military professionals to capture the essence of Rumsfeld’s amateurish approach to war planning. “Here may be the clearest manifestation of OSD’s contempt for the accumulated wisdom of the military profession and of the assumption among forward thinkers that technology—above all information technology—has rendered obsolete the conventions traditionall governing the preparation and conduct of war,” commented retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, a former commander of an armored cavalry regiment. “To imagine that PowerPoint slides can substitute for such means is really the height of recklessness.” It was like telling an automobile mechanic to use a manufacturer’s glossy sales brochure to figure out how to repair an engine.
The entire post at Arms & Influence is well worth reading. It’s available here.
UPDATE: Marty Lederman provides a link to an important early use of Powerpoint during wartime. Check it out — it’s priceless.
Kevin–
Terrific link, with implications not only for government agencies but also for law professors. I worry about the cognitive limitations of powerpoint in the classroom. Unfortunately, our students have come to expect not just use of the slide show during class (which I now use for outlining discussion point) but often demand copies of the slides (which I refuse). It’s a troubling trend that equates powerpoint — on a “smartboard” with the ability to move text and to paste in pictures, weblinks, etc.– with “creative” pedagocial use of technology. Edward Tufte — the Yale guru of information design — has written an excellent critique of the cognitive dangers of the ppt format in his essay The Cognitive Style of Powerpoiont (available for purchase on the web). His discussion of the failure of ppt to convey adequately the structural problems during the NASA/Columbia Space Shuttle disaster is particularly compelling.
Is powerpoint the norm in New Zealand? If other readers are fans/foes of ppt in the classroom, I’d be interested in hearing their views. Is powerpoint a power for good teaching or bad?
Peggy
PPT is ubiquitous in the military (replacing overhead foils in recent years).
At a recent JAG continuing ed conference one of the comments was that if you were a JAG lawyer in a court martial you had better be prepared to have PPT presentations, as your military jury would be used to receiving information in that format, would most easily receive information in that format, and is not used to much of any other format these days.
I understand that IBM used to be a very “overhead foil centric” culture as well.
I also agree that PPT is the refuge of those who don’t want to have to think things through, but that appears in lots of areas that use PPT, and indeed many that don’t.
Peggy,
I do not use PowerPoint or, for that matter, any technology in my classes (comparative world religions) more sophisticated than chalk and blackboard. I warn the students on the first day of class that we’re low-tech (Lovin’s soft-energy path I suppose), with no bells and whistles. Lectures, discussions, that’s it. It worked for my teachers, so…. I’ve never been to a compelling or interesting PPT presentation…. Not of few of my colleagues suspect I have an inordinate fondness for the Paleolithic period. Today I happened to give a seminar at another institution (first time I’ve taught there) on animal ethics and we did view a DVD (it was strongly suggested to me that students need to see a movie during a day-long seminar), but only after a half dozen of us tried to figure out how to work the #!?*&!#@ equipment (computer, projector, etc.).
Prof. McGuinness – I believe, but am not 100% sure since I haven’t checked it out yet, that some of that discussion is now located in Tufte’s new book Beautiful Evidence.