If We're in Trouble

It's Probably Because People No Longer Really Listen

Yes, now we can add Iraq to the evils perpetuated by PowerPoint.

"Not only is it easier to throw together a stack of PowerPoint slides than it is to write that 10,000-word document, it is much easier to leave out or gloss over parts of the project that might not survive close scrutiny if they were described in complete sentences. Can you say "weapons of mass destruction?" If we cut to the heart of this current controversy about whether Iraq really had WMD, whether the U.S. honestly believed Iraq had WMD, and who got it wrong, I'm sure we'll end up with a guilty PowerPoint stack. In that stack, you'll find a slide containing the words "Iraq" and "WMD" but taken out of context, there is no way of knowing what the presenter even intended the slide to mean. Thus, we have plausible deniability through PowerPoint."

For eight years from 1987-95, Robert X. Cringely wrote the Notes From the Field column in InfoWorld, a weekly computer trade newspaper. He is also the author of the best-selling book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date.
Most recently, Cringely is the host and writer of the hit PBS-TV miniseries "Electric Money."

If We're in Trouble

Robert X. Cringely 
(http://www.cringely.com)



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