Issue #3

I believe that Elisabeth Bumiller is being too harsh, and unreasonable. PowerPoint provides an effective medium to present vital points in the armed services and defense planning. It seems as if Bumiller is being extremely one-sided in blaming military blunders on PowerPoints. According to the article, it seems to me that maybe there really is too much time spent on creating these PowerPoint slides. In my own experience, I find the program to be quite useful for presentations of complex material.

Altering the material to a more audience-centered approach would definitely be beneficial in these types of situations. In the process of transforming the PowerPoint to be more audience-centered, there may be other necessary preparations that should be completed as well. These would include things such as extra handouts with extra information, other charts or graphics, etc. As long as the extra items were included in the presentation, I think it would aid in allowing the audience to better understand the presentation.

In military or governmental situations, such as the one in Kabul, I believe that it may be best to not solely rely on PowerPoint to get our message across. This is especially important if we want the audience retention level to be high. Retention would need to be particularly high in situations such as this, relating to war. I think that other forms of communication are also necessary to make sure that the audience really does know what is going on, and what they are to do.