OK, story time.
My year at Leavenworth (no, not for anything like THAT!) attending the Army's Command and General Staff College (their year-long Professional Military Education school for Majors; the AF and Navy have similar schools). One of the "core" courses is a seven week class on understanding and building an "Ops Order" at the Corps level (the huge package that details how the Corp will go into battle; you're there to learn how to become a "staff officer" at the strategic level, this is something "staff officers would do")
We're at the point in the class where we are supposed to build the "Intelligence Assessment" portion, with the end result being a briefing we would give to the "Corps Commander" (the instructor). Class is split into two groups to do this, and it's my turn to lead one of the groups (which means I'll present the brief). Lots of friendly ribbing and chuckles about the "AF guy" leading an Army brief.
Get my team together, and start building our presentation (on PowerPoint), which I will present the next day. Class has one of those "Smart-boards" which is a portable white-board like device, nearly 8 feet across and 4 feet tall, that can display computer screens and can be set up as a touch-screen. In about an hour, I get all the information I can from my team and we decide (based on my insistence) on limiting the presentation to 3 slides, which I think is the right amount to ensure I can present the entire brief in the 10 minutes we were allotted. I release my team, and work on the slides alone for about another hour to make sure I got the format pretty much correct and the information captured (no need for anyone to "look over my shoulder" and slow me down, I figured they can leave and work on something more important (like taking the rest of the day off and being with their family, which to me was just as important during that year-long school).
So, like I said, I finish up pretty quickly, and start to pack up for the day (to be with MY family). I look over, and there is the other team, led by one of my classmates who is an Army infantryman, standing behind the leader suggesting and adding more and more to their presentation. I chuckle, and leave for the day.
Next day, day of the "presentation". When I get in, I casually ask a member of the other team "How long you guys stay for yesterday?" His reply, 'Oh, we were here well after you all left. I didn't get home until 6PM, and I think xxxxx (the team leader) stayed afterwards." So, when xxxxs gets in, I ask him how long he worked on this presentation. His answer: "I was up until midnight finishing it". I look shocked, "You worked on this for over 12 hours?"
His reply, "We'll see who does better" he says as he laughs at me for being the "typical" AF guy who always is looking for the "easy way out" of work (my classmates "typical" view of the AF).
Presentation time. I'm up first. Three easy slides, spent most of the time about 10 feet form the board, talking to the Corps Commander instead of the slides. Finish in just under the 10 minutes. Polite applause, I sit down.
The infantryman's turn. He then proceeds to spend the next 40 minutes presenting his "masterpiece". He never stops touching the board, and every time he touches it, a piece of animation or a text box slides in from the side. Graphics galore. He even has F-16s zoom in from the right, with little explosion animations going off on the enemy. Arrows showing troop movements EVERYWHERE. The slide NEVER changed, but he kept adding more and more graphics to it. After he was done, it looked worse than the slide presented to Gen McChrystal that started this whole conversation. I think he got carpal tunnel in his index finger, he touched that dang board so much by the time he was through.
He sits down to shouts of "Awesome job", "Fantastic", "That's how the ARMY does it" from the rest of the class. I applaud politely.
Instructor goes up to the front of the room. "Well done by both sides, but which side do you think did better?" Almost unanimous from the rest of the class that the infantryman was the winner. Even some remarks from my team-mates that "We TOLD Bullet he needed to put more effort into this." (Thanks, pals!) The infantryman's remark? "Well, it really wasn't fair,I do this for a living."
The instructor sees that I'm scowling the whole time, and then asks me "Bullet,what did YOU think of of xxxxx's brief?"
My response: "If I was the Corps Commander, I would have told him to get to the point at the 8 minute mark, told him "if you touch that board one more time, I chop off your fingers" at the 10 minute mark, and would have finally told him to "shut up and sit down" at the 15 minute mark."
The class is SHOCKED! "No way!", "BS!", "Typical AF" shouts form the crowd. The instructor simply asks "Why?" My response; "The commander doesn't have the time for you to waste it for him. He gave you 10 minutes to tell him what he needs to hear--xxxxx took 40. It's also obvious to me that he spent about 10 more hours than me to get that "PowerPoint sink-hole" together, I did mine in 2. Means I have 10 extra hours to get onto more important things, like running a battle..."
The class comes to xxxxx's defense. "You don't get it AF. He did this the ARMY way, all-out"
The instructor's response: "YOU don't get it. Bullet is 1000% correct. Xxxxx just wasted 30 minutes off the General's time, and 10 hours of his own." Ends the lesson with a famous take-away: "Perfection is the enemy of "good enough" ."
Lesson (hopefully) learned: you use PowerPoint to help you present information, not to create the latest Spielberg masterpiece of special effects and overwhelming visuals. By the looks of that McChrystal slide, it seems that lesson hasn't sunk in to a few of the folks out in the field....
And here I am telling you all that your presentations should be short and sweet, and I'm doing it in a manifesto. Oh, the irony!