Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and solicitous decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers referred to as PowerPoint Rangers in the daily training of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington or for a platoon leader’s pre-mission warfare meeting in a remote pocket of Afghanistan.

As an industry forecaster, I helped polish many, many slide decks. And I have created more than a few of my own. Some of the criticisms are certainly valid while others seem to me more about the nature of routine status meetings than the particular tool used to create material for those meetings.

It’s not that PowerPoint and its competitors don’t share any blame. Over time, they have gained features like gradient fills and shadow that support deception and the gratuitous use of graphical junk. Standard templates tend to the chaotic and garish. But the hierarchical bullets that are the target of many Power Point criticisms such as the following predates PowerPoint, indeed, predate personal computers.