The Illusion of Understanding
In his article in Punch, Leo Shanahan puts up a hilarious PowerPoint slide that the US Army used to explain to its top brass how it would win the war in Afghanistan. The article goes on to explain why trying to simplify complex arguments down to bullet points invokes the danger of creating the perception of knowledge.
To quote General McMaster in the article: “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-sizable.”
True.
Ideas, arguments and concepts are more readily tested through dialogue. Poor thinking and specious arguments can be quickly torn apart when a room of questioning minds has the chance to engage with the presenter in a discussion. This is why tutorials are more useful for learning than lectures. t is why scientific papers must pass through the test of peer review before they can be published in scientific journals. It is why debates are more interesting and enlightening that public speeches. And it is why new media is so powerful. Traditional media such as newspapers, television and websites are one way paths for information and ideas.
New media on the other hand, has allowed the audience to talk back, through comments on blogs, videos, audio and so on. Traditional media has caught on. The highest ranking radio shows are talk back. Television is shifting from talking heads, to talking heads with audience interaction. Online news sites allow comments on their articles. This is all very healthy, and is an antidote for the great concentration of media ownership around the world.
Back to PowerPoint. While PowerPoint can be a powerful and useful communication tool, it does not beat conversation. It’s a great way of getting a conversation going if done well, and I’ll seen some fabulous and appalling Powerpoint presentations. But providing sufficient time for the concepts in the presentation to be tested by a thoughtful audience is just as important as the presentation itself.
Written by Paul Dalby on 2 May 2010
Excellent analysis paul.
Exactly what I tried to achieve in this presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/fang/student-services-social-media-part1pcsafe
and according to feedback, the quadrant diagrams have really got people thinking, and talking (but alas not in a social media forum we can all participate in).
Speaking of participation, in preparing for this presentation I needed a good definition of social media. Many tweets, a blog post, & few more tweets later we came up with:
“Social Media: an umbrella term describing the combination of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value”
Which works for me.