>> Interesting take, blaming the misuse of software >> for a problem, >> rather >> than those who misued the software.
>Well said. I get to see quite a few ppt >presentations at work and they >never impress me. It has nothing to do with ppt >itself - they're just >bad presentations. Well, this oversimplifies the problem by underestimating the way in which tools condition our thinking and condition the problems and solutions at hand. It is also surprising that anyone would casually and quickly reject a thinker such as Tufte trying to tell us something. I would not say the medium IS the message but certainly it alters, limits, abstracts the message in various ways. This may happen independent of our best intentions. It is overly idealistic to imagine that humans are these perfect things hovering high above the world making decisions; in fact we are immersed in the world and are conditioned by its perameters. Our thinking is conditioned by the language we happen to use as well as by the software we select (or have selected for us, for the most part). No matter how perfect we think we are, a presentation is going to be different with different media - people will learn different things. We make different mistakes when using different tools. Engineering projects have different types of failures based upon different types of software, and versus doing things "by hand". Assuming humans haven't changed, this focuses the attention on the role of the media and methods thereof. Also, at the extreme, different types of projects become possible and impossible. Humans are not limitlessly creative or vigiland therefore we rely upon convention, precedent, technique, culture, tools, etc. to influence answers - this is a part of life and not necessarily "bad". (Most pieces written on piano are different than those written on guitar - and few are capable of dreaming up complete pieces in the abstract not associated with instrumentation, while laying in bed...even they are conditioned by memory of the instruments). Given that this is a fact, one can then turn attention toward laying a certain amount of blame on tools and methods that are more mistake prone in certain contexts. Powerpoint is certainly a media which predisposes one to certain errors mainly related to oversimplification as Tufte argues. Yes, if we were almost perfect and nearly godlike we would catch every mistake and only have ourselves to blame, but in fact as soon as one relies on a tool and gives over some responsibility to the tool (which we must and always do) then we can speak about the influence of the tool itself and about how for example powerpoint may have been a legitimate contributing factor the shuttle disaster. Chaso __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/
