Calling All Powerpoint Warriors
See SWC member Zenpundit's blog - On Thought, Presentation and Connection.
Quote:
...Powerpoint has its strengths and weaknesses like any other tool or format for the presentation of ideas. Plenty of mediocre, muddled, empty or damn fool ideas have been committed to paper or were presented orally and were nonetheless considered persuasive by virtue of their eloquence. Bad powerpoint briefs might still easily be translated into bad journal articles and we'd be no better off. The failure in either case stems from a failure to think effectively and an undue passivity on the part of the audience that should approach orthodox ideas of their institutional " received culture" with as much skepticism as they do new ones.
What powerpoint does well is communicate deep ideas quickly and effectively by engaging the visual centers of the brain by offering representational models. It enhances cognitive "connection" to concepts. Anyone who has taken physics or geometry, certainly fields with as much depth as military theory knows the importance of the diagram in teaching concepts -although poorly explained visuals can also mislead (recall your elementary school diagram of an atom as a miniature solar system). Powerpoint slides can make poorly conceived ideas "look" better, no argument, but they cannot change the substance...
And on the lighter side...
