USAACE
NCOA
SSG Kermit F. Lugo
15Z SLC
17-003
SFC Maradol
The PowerPoint program developed by Microsoft in 1987 is a technological advancement utilized daily. We use it at work, we use it for school and we see it in other professional environments. This technological tool is very helpful when presenting ideas that otherwise would be hard to put into words or to explain to others without the nifty slides. It seems like everything that involves public speaking nowadays, a PowerPoint presentation is the go-to for it. But sometimes we overuse this tool, taking the effectiveness of it away. In fact, one of the Army’s top commanders, says bluntly, "PowerPoint makes us stupid." In 2010 Elisabeth Bumiller from The New York Times published an article titled, “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint”. Talks about the struggles the Army faces because of their over-use of PowerPoint. It shows a really hard to understand slide designed to show the complexity of the Armed Forces strategy in Afghanistan, and quotes …show more content…
It’s a known fact (and every Soldier will tell you), today’s Army relies too heavily on PowerPoint, and it seems that top military officials are starting to notice. At a military conference, Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis, elaborated about the problem by simply stating, "PowerPoint makes us stupid." But why does it make us stupid? You might ask, well, BG McMaster, who spoke at the same conference, stated that “I banned PowerPoint presentations when I led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005”. At the conference BG McMaster called PowerPoint a blue-on-blue threat, and elaborated by saying: "It's dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not