[reaperducer]

Does the average American worker today spend a ton of time in productivity software?

"Average?" No. But many millions of people, yes.

The majority of people in my company spend their day tied to Microsoft Office.

Which bring its own problems when managers don't understand that building a computer program isn't the same speed, complexity, and skill level as making a PowerPoint presentation.

[ctippett]

I know your comparison to PowerPoint was probably not meant to be taken literally, but I'll just add that a good presentation takes just as much time, skill and effort as any creative endeavour (including programming).

[K0balt]

I’d love to see a PowerPoint presentation that has a million man-hours of work in it. Oh, never mind, I probably have.

But seriously, this comment can easily be true, and if it is , then it is an excellent example of a human endeavour that we invented to improve efficiency but has become a bottomless sink of talent, effort, and cost directed away from generating any value whatsoever.

I have never seen a presentation that couldn’t have been done just as well without the use of a computer., except to demonstrate things that are computer related.

Presentations are a great example of an activity that has become an end unto itself that delivers no value, and only serves as a kind of internal preening behaviour, signalling a persons value to the organisation without actually delivering any.

[troyvit]

I don't know if I can point you to a PowerPoint presentation that did have a million man-hours of work on it, but here's a story about one that certainly didn't:

https://mcdreeamiemusings.com/blog/2019/4/13/gsux1h6bnt8lqjd...

Communication is communication, be it by PowerPoint or semaphore, and it takes talent to do it right.

> I have never seen a presentation that couldn’t have been done just as well without the use of a computer., except to demonstrate things that are computer related.

Re-reading that, I wonder what would've happened if the Boeing wonks in that meeting had just not brought a presentation. Maybe you're right.

[K0balt]

Oh crap. I can only imagine how devastating that must have been for the unfortunate person that made that presentation when that finding came out. If it wasn’t such a horrific situation, that sounds comically bad.

I was a contractor for the military for a few years a while back… the military runs on power point.

I’ve seen weeks poured into a power point presentation whose only point was that regular physical conditioning was beneficial to physical fitness. In the medical equipment maintenance shop.

I attended at least 100 meetings during that 8 years, and there wasn’t a single presentation that couldn’t have been replaced with a sheet or two of paper and a short lecture/discussion. Instead we got 1/2 hour marvels of editing and animation, often replete with music and video, and I’ll admit some of it was really a work of art.

But none of that contributed to the salient points. If anything, a good presentation was a distraction, leading to a ten minute discussion about the technique and tools used to make the presentation lol. There was also an underground market of enlisted presentation gurus that would make presentations in exchange for favors or even for pay, because impressive PowerPoint presentations were considered critical to career advancement for officers.

I often wondered what would have happened if IMD deleted PowerPoint off of all of the machines on the domain lol. Collapse? 10x productivity? Tires burning in the streets? Only one way to know for sure!