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Microsoft PowerPoint: Difference between revisions
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[[Microsoft PowerPoint|PowerPoint]] is the market-standard software package for dressing up fatuous ideas with profundity; as such it appeals to fools, blaggers and dilettantes. In the grand scheme of western commerce, that makes it a very, very important application indeed. For some — notably [[change manager]]s and [[management consultants]] — it appears to be the sole means of communication with each other and the outside world. Adeptness at [[PowerPoint]], the willingness to tinker around to get snappy [[slide]] transitions and the like, is a core skill of an aspiring [[middle manager]] (and a quick way to pick up the fundamental syntax of this new idiom). For we recipients — we ''supplicants'' — it is the craggy back wall of the [[Plato’s cave|Platonic grotto]] to which we are chained and indentured. | [[Microsoft PowerPoint|PowerPoint]] is the market-standard software package for dressing up fatuous ideas with profundity; as such it appeals to fools, blaggers and dilettantes. In the grand scheme of western commerce, that makes it a very, very important application indeed. For some — notably [[change manager]]s and [[management consultants]] — it appears to be the sole means of communication with each other and the outside world. Adeptness at [[PowerPoint]], the willingness to tinker around to get snappy [[slide]] transitions and the like, is a core skill of an aspiring [[middle manager]] (and a quick way to pick up the fundamental syntax of this new idiom). For we recipients — we ''supplicants'' — it is the craggy back wall of the [[Plato’s cave|Platonic grotto]] to which we are chained and indentured. | ||
One uses PowerPoint to generate “[[deck]]s” — animated presentations of “content”, arranged on “[[slide]]s” — which create pervasive collective delusions, promising much and delivering nothing to powerless subordinates and guileless superiors. The idea is to overawe or baffle an audience into believing you have something useful to add to the organisation. This is easier to do with animated transitions and hexagon clusters<ref>“Use to show pictures with associated descriptive text. Small hexagons indicate the picture and text pair.”</ref> than it is with a traditional memorandum, in 11 point Times New Roman, dropped into the senior partner’s mail tray. | One uses PowerPoint to generate “[[deck]]s” — animated presentations of “content”, arranged on “[[slide]]s” — which create pervasive collective delusions, promising much and delivering nothing to powerless subordinates and guileless superiors. The idea is to overawe or baffle an audience into believing you have something useful to add to the organisation. This is easier to do with animated transitions and hexagon clusters<ref>“Use to show pictures with associated descriptive text. Small hexagons indicate the picture and text pair.”</ref> than it is with a traditional memorandum, in 11 point Times New Roman, dropped into the senior partner’s mail tray. Hence the inexplicable success of a software package that functionally is a disaster, even by Microsoft’s extraordinary standards. | ||
PowerPoint’s linguistic foundation comprises not just the traditional Roman alphabet but a supplemental lexicon of wingdings, pull-outs, bullets and animated transitions — gear charts, diverging radials and cycle matrices — through which one can communicate in ways previously alien to the Indo-European tradition. | PowerPoint’s linguistic foundation comprises not just the traditional Roman alphabet but a supplemental lexicon of wingdings, pull-outs, bullets and animated transitions — gear charts, diverging radials and cycle matrices — through which one can communicate in ways previously alien to the Indo-European tradition. | ||