What would happen if there was no PowerPoint?

Before email and power point, we had a Byzantine system where taskings would come mid day and COB by staff memo or OPORD. Your unauthorized orderly room clerk(s) would pick up correspondence from the BN S1. Anything outside that was a phone call between the SPO/S3 calling a Company Commander or XO. If you were in trouble it was the BC or BN XO.

Battalion Commanders and above made decisions based on one page memos that staff officers would spend days preparing and got sent to a 9 week school to learn how to write them in active voice using the military problem solving method. A typical commander would take 6-8 of these a day. The Staff Officer would have to answer the questions on the spot. Depending on Commander, decisions were delegated, sometimes to senior staff, other times to subordinate commanders. Others retained control for various reasons. The art of the one pager is all but lost.

Computers proliferated, then there was the Great Satan - Havard Graphics, a dysfunctional forerunner of ppt. It actually took four times as long to generate QTB and USR than if you scribed the over head transparencies out of solid granite. We did not have projectors, so you either briefed desk side with a flip book or you had a stack of transparencies (VGTs) in snazzy frames on an over head projector. You had to carry a spare bulb as BII. VGTs would ALWAYS get stuck in the copier, jam rates increased exponentially as the QTB approached. There would always be changes that MUST be made last minute (Co X would increase their M16 qualification rate that sucked all quarter 10 minutes prior). Properly used PPT is not so bad.

The lesser satan was multi-mate and memos were done and redone because they could now be "done perfectly" in courier 12 pitch. The senior staffer or BN XO would review it and the final PCC/PCI was the center crease to see if the BCs signature block was centered (6 tabs). Email, properly used , is a vast improvement.

We would still be using flip charts, overhead projects and VGTs, Tech Tapes, and Large TASC produced mock ups and models... We do get carried away with PPT.... Presentations are suppose to be "Visual Aids" and support what you are talking about. Unfortunately most of us just show the slides and talk to the slides... PPT, Prezi, Wideo, Powtoon are all great tools, but they just visual aids...

I'm in, that would mean there would be NO DEATH by PowerPoint training, briefings or 75 slide, slide decks anymore. People would have to communicate and interact with each other again.

Some of you may have been exposed to the Google earth briefings. You can fly through your AO with images attached and details that pop up. Freaking wonderful! Of course the information is all the same and it takes hours to make it look real cool but what a product. It will surely get someone promoted.

It may seem I’m opposed to these products but in fact like PPT and Google Earth they are tools. If used well they can convey information not easily understood using other methods, when geared towards the correct audience.

I also loved acetate, grease pencils and a very large map. I enjoyed briefing a certain German ISAF General a while back who wouldn’t allow PowerPoint or Google Earth be used in his briefings. Analyst would make paper icons to put on maps. The analyst had to actually know what they were talking about and answer questions by him and his staff on the spot and usually with few notes. He was one of the few people I thought actually understood the situation and those around him were forced to know their AO.

He also asked for your analysis and opinion and took it to heart. Not many seem to do that these days.

The problem is the CDR's (all the way up to the top) lack of trust in subordinates.

I think that if there was no PPT then there would be the overhead projector of the old days. In other words, there is always value in the ability to show something in two dimensions when explaining things. The problem is that the standardized, efficient, yet necessarily constrained environment of PPT lends itself to abuse by those prone to being distracted and influenced by the superficial.

I briefed a 2-star on a 2 week, Brigade-level exercise with a 5 slide ppt deck. My soundtrack kept me talking for 15 minutes, with most of the time spent on the slide with the map and mil-graphics talking through the mission. I had all the backups needed to answer key questions. The response from the general was "looks like you guys have a good exercise going. no questions". Moral of the story, if your brief makes sense then the extra detail you will jam into a ppt isn't actually adding anything except work.

Then again, I did have an experience in OIF of having to include TRPs on a map that were not actually possible since the available arty couldn't actually reach those targets. Oh, and the TRPs were never synched with the arty, so they wouldn't even know what I was talking about if I called for it. And when I objected I was told that TRPs go on that slide, so just add them. So I did, and made up the reference numbers, since it was all for show.

The difference between the first story and the second is leadership that knew what they wanted and WHY they wanted it. As DoctrineMan says, powerpoint is a tool, don't be a tool using it.

We should all do a yearly training exercise, even if it is a small one without technology if possible. I bet we would learn a lot about yourselves and force us to think outside of the box.

I came into the Army just as technology was becoming pervasive, so remember in 1998 when we had to do things with a pencil and pen. I know we still had more tech than probably decades before then, but compared to now, it was still not much.

At the same time, I think we have to be able to balance LEVERAGE technology, not LEANING on it. That is the key to success for the future.

If there was no PowerPoint, there would be projector slides and overhead projectors.

For what it's worth, I think PPT is more of a boon than it is a curse. Just my opinion, of course.

Some of us remember a Military without Computers, Power Point, Technology, to include Cell Phones.

It is amazing what we got accomplished. Leaders actually had to "LEAD!" A Soldier needed the ability to brief and do it well.

Planning was crucial as you could not send a text to get something. Once everyone was released things would not change at whim. There had to be a really good reason.

Meetings even seemed shorter in those days. Weird how that is.

I digress, a few have stated on this thread that technology is a tool and as Leaders we must evolve and understand how the newer Soldier receives information.

I agree that some need to refine their skills in using technology to streamline the information being presented.

Dust off the overhead projectors.

And the mimeographs.

MIND BLOWN!!! Who would want to take it away?

Well in theory Power Point is a great tool. Where we go wrong is using it to brief and not as an aid to our briefs. We should do the talking and only use it to help highlight what we said.

I think we need to get away from using it as a crutch and use it as it should be: a tool, not the be all do all.