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Author Topic: The US Army Has Released Its First Audiobooks  (Read 12707 times)

panzerde

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on: July 06, 2019, 10:34:12 AM

I actually don't really like games.

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mirth

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Reply #1 on: July 06, 2019, 11:24:00 AM
Welcome to the 20th Century :P

Being able to Google shit better than your clients is a legit career skill.


BanzaiCat

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Reply #2 on: August 23, 2019, 11:10:55 AM
By the time the US Army disposes of PowerPoint presentations, the Sun will have turned into a red giant.

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trailrunner

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Reply #3 on: August 23, 2019, 12:10:36 PM
By the time the US Army disposes of PowerPoint presentations, the Sun will have turned into a red giant.

That’s the truth. I got to the office about 0600 this morning and started working on charts. I lost track of the time until my wife called at 0800 and snapped me out of my haze. Then I switched to the classified system for another hour of power point. When I went back to the unclass side, in my inbox was another set of charts for me to work on. 

Power point is the thing I will miss the least when I retire. 

I’ve spent half my life’s earning on wargames, women, and drink. The rest I wasted.


mirth

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Reply #4 on: August 23, 2019, 12:14:11 PM
And watching PPT presentations is always riveting  :D

Being able to Google shit better than your clients is a legit career skill.


BanzaiCat

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Reply #5 on: August 23, 2019, 12:41:13 PM
There's plenty of ways to make PPT presentations more animated and interesting. Besides functionality within PPT itself, Articulate Engage helps a lot. Also just building it in Storyline 360 gives so many more options to make something engaging and interesting.

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trailrunner

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Reply #6 on: August 23, 2019, 12:46:32 PM
There's plenty of ways to make PPT presentations more animated and interesting. Besides functionality within PPT itself, Articulate Engage helps a lot. Also just building it in Storyline 360 gives so many more options to make something engaging and interesting.

I work for the Army, not a real estate company. Our briefings are not supposed to be engaging or interesting.

Usually we are not allowed to have our phones. A critical job skill I’ve developed is staying awake by counting the number of ceiling tiles or carpet squares in the room.

I’ve spent half my life’s earning on wargames, women, and drink. The rest I wasted.


bayonetbrant

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Reply #7 on: August 23, 2019, 01:05:04 PM
the central problem that I've seen w/ PPT's over the past 10-12 years is that they've moved from a "presentation support" tool into the "standalone info dump that keeps me from attending the presentation tool"

It used to be the slides were there to support your talking point, but now there's so many people that will reply to your meeting with "hey, I can't be there; can you just send me your slides?" so the presenters feel like they have to cram everything into them for the assholes that think they're too important to attend a meeting.

(it doesn't help that the world has waaaaaaay too many meetings)

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BanzaiCat

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Reply #8 on: August 23, 2019, 01:44:50 PM

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trailrunner

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Reply #9 on: August 23, 2019, 04:27:27 PM
There are several problems with ppt and, by extension, the computerized office tools. We spend tons of time wordsmithing every damn word. Every presentation has to be reviewed by multiple layers, and each review reduces the time available to do a quality briefing. Say I have two weeks to do an external briefing.  Read aheads are due two days prior. My senior leadership will want to see it three days before that, and my immediate supervisor a couple days before that. That means I might have two days to compile the information and just type it. Maybe make a graphic. Meanwhile I have my usual day job to take care of. The first review doesn’t go well because I didn’t have time to actually think about it. Then half way through the process I’ll get at least one (arbitrary) template change, and I spend a half day just reformatting the stupid thing. 

I will not miss PowerPoint!

I’ve spent half my life’s earning on wargames, women, and drink. The rest I wasted.


BanzaiCat

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Reply #10 on: August 23, 2019, 05:30:06 PM
That's freakin' insane that there's so many layers. Or that it's even used in the first place. Nobody ever pays attention to it.

Basic rule of PPT - no more than 17 words per slide. Yeah right.

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Barthheart

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Reply #11 on: August 23, 2019, 08:31:11 PM
Pffft... yer doing it wrong. Minimal info on first three slides the something controversial on 4th... guaranteed to cause a ruckus. The crowd spends the next 40 min, on arguing amongst themselves and you get to stand and adjudicate. Job done.

Works really well with physicists..... ;)

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trailrunner

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Reply #12 on: September 03, 2019, 08:46:42 PM
There are several problems with ppt and, by extension, the computerized office tools. We spend tons of time wordsmithing every damn word. Every presentation has to be reviewed by multiple layers, and each review reduces the time available to do a quality briefing. Say I have two weeks to do an external briefing.  Read aheads are due two days prior. My senior leadership will want to see it three days before that, and my immediate supervisor a couple days before that. That means I might have two days to compile the information and just type it. Maybe make a graphic. Meanwhile I have my usual day job to take care of. The first review doesn’t go well because I didn’t have time to actually think about it. Then half way through the process I’ll get at least one (arbitrary) template change, and I spend a half day just reformatting the stupid thing. 

I'm in ppt hell right now, working on no less that 5 briefings, including a briefing about one of the briefings (seriously).  Today I sat through a two hour meeting in the Pentagon going through charts.  Pretty painful.  There were about 20 people in the room, mostly O5 and O6 level, and about that many dialed in from outstations.  Death by ppt committee.  This is the third or fourth weekly meeting on this briefing, and I think we're halfway through.  My input is pretty minimal, and we spent all of 0.5 seconds (the time it took to push the down arrow twice) on my slides.  So I had 119m59.5 seconds listening to other people talk.  Sometimes that can be interesting if it's a new subject, but not in this case.  Phones aren't allowed at these meetings.  The key is to drink lots of coffee, but no water, and really drain your bladder beforehand, trying to maximize the state of dehydrated caffeination.  Or is that caffeinated dehydration?  Hmm...something to ponder for 119 minutes at my next meeting.




I’ve spent half my life’s earning on wargames, women, and drink. The rest I wasted.


BanzaiCat

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Reply #13 on: September 04, 2019, 06:26:11 PM
Better do a PPT presentation on this.

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trailrunner

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Reply #14 on: September 18, 2019, 05:42:17 PM
Yesterday afternoon I sat through a 3 hour briefing.  I had one slide, which took me perhaps 3 minutes to brief.  No questions, no comments.  My slide was the 3rd or 4th slide in the deck, so for the next 2 hours 45 minutes I sat in an E ring conference room.  I was all the way at the front, right in front of the huge TVs that were projecting the slides and the outstations, so I couldn't fall asleep or even slouch mightily.  Sometimes I don't mind sitting through a briefing because it might be an opportunity to learn something, but not this one.

For my 3 minutes of talking and one slide, I estimate we spent at least 20 hours on it, tracking review and coordination meetings.  Researching and typing the slide probably took me 1 hour.

We have another one of these, but I am on a special assignment for two weeks (not nearly as exciting as it sounds) so someone else will brief my slide.

I’ve spent half my life’s earning on wargames, women, and drink. The rest I wasted.