On Powerpoint

[Greyhawk]

There were earlier programs, but for simplification this is how they were greeted "in the office":

Right: "Gosh, this Word program sure is a huge step up from the typewriter!"

Right: "Gosh, this PowerPoint program sure is a huge step up from overhead slides and erasable markers!"

Wrong: "Gosh,this PowerPoint program sure is a step up from a typewriter!"

Item three is wrong, but that does not make PowerPoint wrong. However, too many people accept item three as Gospel. Sadly, it isn't completely wrong, and that by itself would justify its continued misuse. Consider also that if a person who saw it as "right" or "good enough" was of sufficient rank, then it was indeed Gospel and couldn't possibly be wrong and certainly not from the POV of someone below. It was hardly an issue worth falling on one's sword - I mean that sincerely. Those young parish priests are now Bishops and Cardinals, and the Dogma is entrenched. (Incorporated in the larger scripture of staffwork as the pain that must periodically be quietly endured. Thou shalt sit in thy corner and color thy slides.)

The new Parish Priests are "digital natives", their unfamiliarity with the typewriter or the overhead slide gives me no hope they'll necessarily set things to right. (Though I'm not entirely without hope, they may indeed "discover" something that makes sense.)

Another layer of irony is that now one can fairly easily incorporate images in Word documents - and color printers (if hardcopy required) are the rule rather than the exception (excluding some tactical environments), but PowerPoint is still often used as substitute for a typewriter. Hammes is (correctly but IMHO circuitously) pointing all this out.

A last depressing thought - for a few years there were places where things were done right, but standardization and networked systems are quickly making them a thing of the past. (I'm probably well beyond the discussion of PowerPoint here...)