I remember doing a presentation to a bunch of doctors using pivot charts and PowerPoint (way back in the day.)
One of them told me they “Looked at you like you were friggin’ Harry Potter.”
Those were fun days.
The PowerPoint Ranger Creed
This is my PowerPoint. There are many like it but mine is 97. My PowerPoint is my best friend.
It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.
My PowerPoint without me is useless. Without my PowerPoint, I am useless. I must format my slides true. I must brief them better than the other staff sections who are trying to out brief me. I must brief the impact on the CINC before he asks me. I will.
My PowerPoint and myself know that what counts in this war is not the information. We know that it is the number of slides, the colors of the highlights, and the format of the bullets that counts. My PowerPoint is human, even as I, because it is my life.
Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its fonts, its accessories, its formats, and its colors. I will keep my PowerPoint slides current and ready to brief. We will become part of each other. We will…
Before God I swear this creed. My PowerPoint and myself are defenders of my country. We are the masters of our subject. We are the saviors of my career. So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace (and the next exercise)!
Rangers Lead the Way!!
I had a CEO that hated graphs and graphical presentations of data; he just wanted to see the numbers. Me, myself, I wanted to see the trends in the numbers. I’d give him the rows of data, and I’d analyze the direction of things by the graphs and charts. We’d both come to the same conclusions.
Was this in the 1980s? Because this was commonplace by the mid 90s or so.