There is an interesting discussion of the role that PowerPoint had in the Columbia discussion. In summary as information is passed up through the organisation at NASA more and more detail is lost until the point you wouldn’t know there is a problem anymore. Either go and read the story at the link above or just read the short summary below.
• Don’t use PowerPoint
– PowerPoint makes you stupid
– Technical Reports are better for technical information
– PowerPoint is bad, mm’kay
› Your conclusions here
I’ve also prepared some slides to summarise the results: Don’t Use PowerPoint
Thanks to Richard Kemp for pointing me to this story.
Filed under: Columbia, Disasters, Engineering, Extrapolation, NASA, POwerPoint, Presentation, Science, Technical Information, Technical Report
[...] [2] Bainite points to a story as to why you shouldn’t use powerpoint. [...]
“I actually came across this via this brief post about General Petreus’
presentation and the role of question marks to Congress:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/hope_the_new_plan.php
(For reference, the Underpants Gnomes have a three-phase business plan,
consisting of:
1. Collect Underpants
2. ?
3. Profit )”