"PowerPoint makes us stupid," says Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, summarizing a growing concern in the armed forces that U.S. commanders' "near obsession" with the Microsoft presentation software is becoming a big problem. It oversimplifies complex issues, gives an illusion of easy solutions, dumbs down analysis, and sucks up human resources, PowerPoint haters say — and it could be hurting the war effort. Is PowerPoint really a military threat? (Watch Americans struggle to read the complicated PowerPoint slide)
It's not just the armed forces: The military's concern about PowerPoint is "basically dead on," says Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in Business Insider. In fact, "it applies to pretty much any organization that cares about productivity," not just the army. Still, the program is "too damn convenient" to disappear on its own — the military has to "fight it tooth and nail" to win the war on PowerPoint.
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