What powerpoint does well is communicate deep ideas quickly and effectively by engaging the visual centers of the brain by offering representational models. It enhances cognitive “connection” to concepts. Anyone who has taken physics or geometry, certainly fields with as much depth as military theory knows the importance of the diagram in teaching concepts -although poorly explained visuals can also mislead (recall your elementary school diagram of an atom as a miniature solar system). Powerpoint slides can make poorly conceived ideas “look” better, no argument, but they cannot change the substance.
John Robb had some important comments on Lind’s essay today:
“Here’s how to break this: an open source movement within the junior ranks. Put the seeds of new doctrines in wikis and build a community to flesh it out. Build blogs to share ideas. Network them. Technology can be of service here to build a knowledge network that outpaces the formal network in quality, speed and flexibility by an order of magnitude or more. Route around the gridlock by making the efforts public. Get congressional sponsors. You could even get individual and corporate sponsors to pay for the platform development (under the condition that they leave it alone) — there are patriots out there that care.”
I agree. Along those lines, check out GroupIntel Blog and The Small Wars Council.
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Dave Dilegge:
April 12th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Mark,
Once again, thanks and a hat tip. Besides the PMC discussion, I hope the link to Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen will start some discussion/ debate on the board. Spot-on on what I call communities of interest fleshing out the issues…
Also, glad you found the graveyard amusing;-)
mark:
April 13th, 2006 at 2:58 am
Hey Dave,
You’re welcome ! SWC/SWJ are outstanding – the discussions are great and the links I find exceptionally useful – so much so that I often try to feature them here as well. Just wish I had more time to post !
I’ll take a look at the 28 articles – something’s wrong with my Adobe reader at home ( need to download again) so I’ll print it out at work tomorrow – that nice, ultra-expensive laser copier in the department has its uses ;o)
vonny:
April 13th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Hi Mark,
I like the idea of using technology to open the floodgates of thought at the junior ranks, not only in military and foreign policy development, but in all fields.
As an aside, you know better than anyone how I feel about where our education system is headed with a test-only mentality. We are on the verge of creating an entire generation who will be trained to ‘think inside the box.’ This has potentially dangerous consequences across the board. We need a balance between vertical-horizontal thinking/knowledge-skills education in order to have large numbers of people in these fields (as well as in science and technology fields)in order to think outside the box and think more globally and in multidisciplinary ways.
You have some good discussions going, my friend!
mark:
April 13th, 2006 at 3:50 am
hey Von,
well..I try….usually the most productive debates are where they have gone off in an unexpected direction.
Have an idea I’m going to run by you soon, probably via email, when I can snatch some extra time.
Give my best to K. !
larry:
April 13th, 2006 at 4:38 am
Ya but, after drinking the Kool-aid, a PowerPoint must seem like a burning bush, you think?
Eddie:
April 13th, 2006 at 9:34 am
This could seem trivial but bear with me please.
I have noticed this type of problem in the Navy with regards to our damage control/ shipboard firefighting protocols and training.
Junior sailors (and occasionally a junior engineering officer or two) who try to utilize new ideas and strategies for tackling shipboard flooding, fires and other hazards are always reprimanded via a number of ways (whether by criticism from above in the chain of command or on the damage control training teams, or even by the penalizing of their “fire teams/repair lockers” during training and testing evaluations”).
It has gotten to the point where on several ships I’ve been onboard in 7th Fleet, especially my own, the same rehashed training scenarios are utilized over and over again, often in high-probablity zones for terrorist or foreign military attacks via missiles, suicide boats and mines.
Qualifications are increasingly earned by written tests, not oral examinations or on-scene evaluation. What’s put on paper vs. what’s in reality are two vastly different things, thus the constant need for CO’s & XO’s in charge of the ship’s emergency response to tilt the testing, training and eval process itself towards a smaller realm of contingencies and scenarios that require less on-hand, practical knowledge of sailors and more memorization of written manuals and likely test questions.
Sonny:
April 14th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Mark,
Tanks for posting on this. And for the tip. I wrote some stuff about it on FX-based: http://fx-based.blogspot.com/2006/04/plague.html
Keep up the awesome work.
Sonny