Don't hold back now...tell us what you really think! ;-)
-----Original Message----- From: graywolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Powerpoint Then we can look at it another way, a person who makes a possibly life threatening multi-million dollar decision from a twenty minute PowerPoint presentation certainly fits my definition of a fool. Of course, the adviser who presents it that way fits my definition of incompetent. -- Chaso DeChaso wrote: > >>>Interesting take, blaming the misuse of software >>>for a problem, >>>rather >>>than those who misued the software. > > >>Well said. I get to see quite a few ppt >>presentations at work and they >>never impress me. It has nothing to do with ppt >>itself - they're just >>bad presentations. > > > Well, this oversimplifies the problem by > underestimating the way in which tools condition our > thinking and condition the problems and solutions at > hand. It is also surprising that anyone would > casually and quickly reject a thinker such as Tufte > trying to tell us something. > > I would not say the medium IS the message but > certainly it alters, limits, abstracts the message in > various ways. This may happen independent of our best > intentions. > > It is overly idealistic to imagine that humans are > these perfect things hovering high above the world > making decisions; in fact we are immersed in the world > and are conditioned by its perameters. Our thinking > is conditioned by the language we happen to use as > well as by the software we select (or have selected > for us, for the most part). No matter how perfect we > think we are, a presentation is going to be different > with different media - people will learn different > things. We make different mistakes when using > different tools. Engineering projects have different > types of failures based upon different types of > software, and versus doing things "by hand". Assuming > humans haven't changed, this focuses the attention on > the role of the media and methods thereof. Also, at > the extreme, different types of projects become > possible and impossible. > > Humans are not limitlessly creative or vigiland > therefore we rely upon convention, precedent, > technique, culture, tools, etc. to influence answers - > this is a part of life and not necessarily "bad". > (Most pieces written on piano are different than those > written on guitar - and few are capable of dreaming up > complete pieces in the abstract not associated with > instrumentation, while laying in bed...even they are > conditioned by memory of the instruments). Given that > this is a fact, one can then turn attention toward > laying a certain amount of blame on tools and methods > that are more mistake prone in certain contexts. > Powerpoint is certainly a media which predisposes one > to certain errors mainly related to oversimplification > as Tufte argues. Yes, if we were almost perfect and > nearly godlike we would catch every mistake and only > have ourselves to blame, but in fact as soon as one > relies on a tool and gives over some responsibility to > the tool (which we must and always do) then we can > speak about the influence of the tool itself and about > how for example powerpoint may have been a legitimate > contributing factor the shuttle disaster. > > Chaso > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. > http://photos.yahoo.com/ > > -- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com "You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
