I recently reread an an article from The New York Times which was picked up by many blog writers last spring. The article highlights the (mis)use of PowerPoint by the United States military. The writer begins with a color coded “bowl of spaghetti” diagram intended to portray military strategy in Afghanistan, then goes on to quote a general as saying, “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
The real problem is not necessarily PowerPoint of course, rather how it is used. While I absolutely agree bullets are a poor way to communicate (despite their prominence in most presentation templates), I would not be so quick to attack the use of a diagram.
The spaghetti is actually a causal loop diagram which can be a very useful tool for visualizing interrelated variables. Social entrepreneurs are individuals working on solutions for complicated social problems – problems often with many interrelated variables. While the slide shown in The New York Times article could obviously be simplified or broken into pieces for clarity, I welcome the use of any tool used to help get an audience thinking about relationships over another presenter putting them to sleep by reading bullets directly from a slide.
