post

Microsoft Should Donate PowerPoint to the Taliban

Posted on April 28, 2010 ·

I don’t pretend to be a military strategist, but I’ve figured out how to win the war in Afghanistan.  OK, not on my own – The New York Times helped, with an article titled: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.

“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter.

Another choice quote:

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

Wait, since when do Army Generals not like bullets? 🙂   But there’s more:

Last year when a military Web site, Company Command, asked an Army platoon leader in Iraq, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, how he spent most of his time, he responded, “Making PowerPoint slides.” When pressed, he said he was serious.

Platoon commanders spending most of their time fiddling with Powerpoint?  And we wonder why …. (slapped my hand, scrapped the rest of my comment…)

So here’s my 3-step Military Strategy, bulletized (could fit one PPT slide!):

  • Ban PowerPoint from the US Military
  • Convince Microsoft to donate 10,000 copies of PowerPoint to the Taliban
  • Go get them while they are busy PPT-ing 🙂

(Note: the above does not constitute a pro-war stance- I’m just having fun…)

Update: an old post of mine comes to mind:Romulan Attack Because of Microsoft Office

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
post

US Army Wikified

Posted on March 17, 2009 ·

WetPaint is one of my early “discoveries”, three years ago I called them the “wiki-less” wiki, as it blended wiki-like, forum-like and blog-like features long before it became fashionable.   I haven’t followed them closely, but apparently they’ve been growing nicely, and today I saw this post:

The US Army on Wetpaint! – hm .. let’s see.  The PE350 Wiki is a Virtual Classroom, set up by Major Mark Rea, who put his Cadets’ physical education plan online.  This is cool on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin…

First of all, it’s a truly professionally maintained wiki, with a Wiki 101 for new users, then details of the Syllabus, Lessons and Assignements, Cadet Fitness Challenge..etc.  They use text, photos, videos, podcasts – you name it, this is a fully featured interactive social site.

Second, I grew up in a country where anything even remotely related to the Army was surrounded with utmost secrecy, and I am still somewhat amazed at the level on information publicly available about the US military.  Granted, there are no strategic plans or weapons specs in this wiki, but still … smile_wink

Third… quick IM reaction from the first person I shared this news with:

Cool. Why is US Army resorting to free sites? Credit crunch

What a perfect fit for the Power of Less theme I just wrote about earlier today, in my Web 2.0 Expo post.  Major Rea and his cadets are using Wetpaint instead of Blackboard, the market leader commercial software for Education.   No, the US Army as a whole did not replace Blackboard with Wetpaint – but this particular unit did.  It’s a good start – just like corporations using Google Apps or Zoho Business services here and there … usage grows, initially it may just be leverage in licence negotiations with Blackboard, Microsoft and the like… but one day, who knows…smile_tongue.  It’s nice to see the US Army SaaS-ified. 

Oh, and for that Power of Less: it’s certainly less when it comes to what hey have to spend on software – but I’m not even sure it’s less when it comes to usability, participation.  Could this also become the case of Less is More?

(from the PE350 video page)

 

(Cross-posted from CloudAve.  To stay abreast of news, analysis and just plain opinion on Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business grab the CloudAve Feed here.)

Filed Under: Collaboration, SaaS · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,