What would happen if there was no PowerPoint?

Bill Gates would lose like $100.

You would have to think on your toes.

Personally, I would be the happiest solider on the block. People would be forced to know the material they are briefing inside and out. It would force face to face communication, which leads to greater understanding by everyone.

Couple this with no email, and we would need to speak to each other. Information would delivered clearly and concisely to avoid confusion.

The funny party is, the network had been down for the past few days at my unit, and believe it or not, productivity has increased.

Yes, Power Point is a great tool, when used in moderation. It is not supposed to be the "meat and potatoes" of a presentation, it is there only to augment the material being presented.

All to often powerpoint distracts the person(s) recieving instruction away from the fact that the instructor is ill prepaired. Craming a slide full information is usless as well. The class will often drift off after the first sentence of the slide. The army has never understood the idea of PowerPoint being an additional form of media to assist in instructing the class. As a business owner if i was given a presentation that had more than three or four bullet points on it to highlight key items i would end the presentation on the presenter, i have done it twice in my tenure. It shows complete lack of preperation. We cant all be subject matter experts you say; a good soldier will recieve a task and be prepaired to lead the block as if he was. Additional tasks are often given in the private sector it should be no different in our military.

If you stop one malfunction there will be three more pop up to replace it. We would have to stop training, figure out what we could do to replace it so it makes our lives easier. I have been in about 30 years now and I have seen all types of presentations. PowerPoint right now is what is easy, give it a few years and we will have something else, PowerPoint just has not had its 15 minutes of fame. CSM Poll hit the nail on the head we would have to go old school. If microsoft collapsed how would you brief your commander, keep your data straight, inventory your supplies, and a mass of other things that happen with in a unit. Chew on that one for awhile.

Well they are trying do do away with PowerPoint. TRADOC Introduce what's called ALM 2015 (Army Learning Model) and it's designed to have more hands on and interaction during classes. In the future there will be no more instructors, they will transition into a facilitator and the students will basically teach them selfs with input from the facilitator.

A few years back my company commander came to me about a project I was working on and told me that we had to come up with a power point decision brief for the general.

Roger. I came up with three slides. She kicked them back to me and told me all these points; surveys; statistics; graphs; and data she wanted in them - because that is the way she did them in Afghanistan.

I sent it up to the generals XO who shot it back to me with instructions - "You get three slides - present your problem, present your solution, and slide three is what you want the end state to be. Other than that be prepared to discuss what you want minus the other twenty slides of fluff.

This actually happened in Afghanistan in 2008-2009. The base got hit with a computer virus and we lost half the NIPR network and about 10-15% of SIPR. There were a lot of unit TOCs that had officers with their feet up on desks and staff looking at each other asking "now what do we do?" Those that fared well went back to basics...paper copies & dry erase boards. Technology is a great tool to leverage, but always be prepared for Murphy to strike!

Field Grade officers would be unable to function, Company Grade officers wouldn't know what to do with their time, NCOs would have to watch Soldiers paint rocks all day...the Communists and Terrorists would win, the U.S. would cease to exist.

Great question/hypothetical but I think it's being looked at the wrong way. PPT has its place just like any other briefing/teaching medium. If used properly it enhances the decision making process or flow of information but it is often relied upon as a primary asset instead of being used as a tool......perhaps a better way of looking at this is by comparing it to our love of the PT Belt.

The PT Belt in all its shiny glory has its use, and if used properly may enhance the safety of the Soldier. The lack of or the presence of a PT belt does not improve someone's pushups, situps or run time, it does not motivate a group to lift that telephone pole one more time during PT, but it is still used as an addition for safety. Now, most of us would probably agree that the PT belt is over used. Night Jump...must wear PT belt.....Combat...must wear PT belt because the body armor is ineffective without PT belt........Blackout conditions on the FOB...wear PT belt....Normal conditions on the FOB...wear PT belt.....rake leaves, shovel snow, go the latrine, go to the chow hall, react to ambush, go on patrol, go to award ceremony.....wear PT belt. We will not get rid of the PT belt and we hate the PT belt because it's being used in a manner we would disagree with, if it were used properly, none of us would care.

The same goes with PPT. It is used improperly most of the time. It will not go away. There is little any of us can do to escape this dark void of pain and suffering. The light at the end of the tunnel however are officers like yourself, and the officers and NCOs that have posted below. The "old mindset-old timers" are going to want 231 slides on raking leaves, step by step, with certain graphics and animations. Many company/junior field grade officers, and NCOs know that this has gotten silly....so when you are a COL one day, you'll want PPT briefs, just make sure that your folks understand quality, not quantity...and that's how/when the culture changes.

On a similar thought - there's and interesting article in Army Mag this month about cell phones and MC. Basically, that the ubiquitous use of cell phones is another leadership issue wrt micro-managing and stifling junior leaders growth, initiative, etc. I've been saying for some time that just because we can now transmit any information, any time, anywhere, at the speed-of-light, it doesn't mean we (humans) can think and reason any faster than we could 20, 30 or even 100 years ago… before we had any opt these devices!