Agility Loop

There has been an increase in discussion over the past couple of weeks regarding the overuse of PowerPoint in the military and the commercial world, and how it can sometimes be a detriment.  In fact, some articles are actually suggesting that the overuse is costing lives.

While I agree that the “PowerPoint Ranger” mentality of the military CAN be a detriment, PowerPoint does have its uses when used properly.

This became very apparent yesterday during a session here at Web 2.0.  The topic was Security in Code Development, clearly a complex topic.  The presenter chose to eschew PowerPoint altogether and instead handed out ten copies of a 25 page paper so that the audience could follow along while he presented it.  It wasn’t a page by page review, but selected sections were presented to help facilitate understanding to the audience.

What it underscored to me is the power of pictures and diagrams to facilitate understanding.  This is not something that is PowerPoint specific, but tools like PowerPoint provide a good forum to present concepts.  In a complicated discussion about cross site scripting attacks, it would have been very helpful to level set the knowledge of the room to further the discussion.  Instead, I felt that some of the audience (frankly myself included at times) was lost in the discussion.  I also see this in briefings for the Government…the simple “cartoon” picture is a great way to level set discussions, especially with senior level folks who are less technical.

Of course I am not suggesting that this cartoon picture replace real diagrams.  Instead I believe it is a great tool to have in your quiver to enhance buy-in, stimulate discussion, and further your project.

Blippy,  a company that enables users to share their credit card purchases, today provided details on a breach of credit card information.  Turns out that four credit card numbers were searchable via Google.  The beginning of their response:

Today someone discovered a Google search that displays the credit card numbers of 4 Blippy users.

We take security seriously and want to assure Blippy users that this was an isolated incident from many months ago in our beta test, and doesn’t affect current users.

While it looks super-scary and certainly sucks for those few people who were affected, and is embarrassing to us, it’s a lot less bad than it looks.

Although I feel a “less bad” for these four folks, WHAT THE !@!$@!$ DID YOU EXPECT?  It is one thing to use your credit card online for purchases, but it is a whole new level of voyeurism that drives you to share your credit card number for the purposes of telling the world what you are buying.

“Hello world…I just bought an fully capable inflatable sheep for $19.99.  I promise it is just as a gag…honest.”