Class XII Gives PowerPoint The Nod
By Mike Danna
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Public Relations Director
When Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin invented PowerPoint in 1984 they hoped it would replace its dull predecessors, the overhead projector and transparencies.
PowerPoint, with its interactive capabilities incorporating graphics, sound and motion, was supposed to captivate audiences, enabling them to better retain the information they were seeing and hearing.
That theory went out the window the first two months the product was on the market.
Today, PowerPoint presentations are as cliché as the laser pointers that usually accompany them. In fact, there are times when I’d love to see a guy hauling in an unwieldy overhead projector, accompanied by a stack of blank transparencies, black marker in hand. At least it would be something different.
During our first stop Wednesday, Class XII watched a 20-minute video presentation at one of Argentina’s government-run research facilities. The video touted the intricacies of the work being done there, breaking down the projects into the smallest of details. This was followed by an hour-long PowerPoint presentation that essentially recapped the video. Then that PPT was followed by another 45-minute PPT presentation on the laboratory facilities by one of their senior researchers.
The man, who brought his own laptop to replace the first one, which apparently had to cool down before its internal processor went critical, talked about the number of technicians, the sizes of their offices, the number of microscopes and even the number and placement of the facility’s bathrooms. Seriously.
To give you an idea of some of this riveting technical content, the man, a Ph.D. by the way, said, “All the office spaces are designed to accommodate the equipment that will be used in them.”
Build a space that accommodates its contents, you say? No wonder the man’s a Ph.D.
About halfway through this two-hour research-based root canal, class members began to nod off. I mean we were really struggling. Some were actually sound asleep. This isn’t a jab at them. I mean, this stuff was seriously dry, bordering on the incomprehensibly boring. (Throw in the language barrier translations and you’ve got the recipe for a life-support only coma.)
Back in the days of the overhead projector, bored conference attendees would begin playing tic-tac-toe with the person next to them. Maybe they’d begin doodling; you know, beach scenes with those little m-shaped seabirds flying around. But this is the age of technology; hand-held technology; technology that can be put on silent.
Before long the bowed heads zeroed in on the PDAs. IPhones began to light up with Angry Birds and Solitaire. I personally bowled 12 games of 10-Pin Shuffle, scoring three 200-plus rounds. I even had two games in which I left no open frames. (SCORE!)
Brad Judice hit one Solitaire victory while Neil Melancon was knocking them dead on Mine Sweeper. You could’ve powered half of New Orleans with the cell phone juice being drained during that session.
It wasn’t that we were being rude, it’s just that the droning seemed to have no end. After a while the length of the presentations actually became unbearable. You could hear moans as the slide we all were sure was the last one was just the last one in that series. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days. And the presenters didn’t seem to realize it. They went on and on as though we were hanging on every word, enjoying every second.
When we took a bathroom break at the hour-and-a-half mark, Kyle Dill commented that the technology guy could’ve given the interrogators at GITMO a run for their money. “Talk or we’ll fire up the Argentine research lab PowerPoint presentation!”
And then we toured the labs. The accommodating spaces the guy mentioned? Empty. The labs, in the words Dr. John Russin, were Spartan to say the least. In fact, what equipment was there seemed to be a tad bit antiquated. The computers were at least 15 years old. There were actually floppy disks in boxes sitting next to the computers. (Just like the U.S. in 1992!)
When the session finally ended we nearly ran for the bus, lest some information not conveyed need to be reviewed. Our collective sigh of relief was like that old expression I’ve heard Jim Monroe use on more than one occasion. “When you stop hitting yourself in the head with a hammer you start to feel better almost immediately.”
During the final debriefing on the bus back to Buenos Aires, Dr. Soileau was pleased with what Class XII took away from its two weeks in South America. The reviews seemed to indicate that be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
Chile and Argentina have come a long way in many aspects of their agricultural production and infrastructure, but they still have a long way to go.
But that doesn’t mean U.S. and Louisiana farmers can slow their pace. When you’re the champ, everybody wants a shot at you.
Tonight is our last night in country before returning home. We’ll have another traditional Argentine dinner, load the suitcase for the last time and head for the airport Thursday afternoon. Our flight leaves at 10 p.m. with our ETA in New Orleans set for noon Friday.
As we reflect on our time here in South America it’s not hard to see why being born in America is 99 percent of the battle. The world’s a big place, filled with hardships and people who can only dream about what our lives are like everyday.
We saw abject poverty in Chile, farmers in Argentina being taxed at rates that would make the hardest of the hard core IRS agent blush and the struggles of subsistence farmers eking out a living doing what they love; a love tempered by the reality that they too can only dream about what American agriculture does as a matter of course, day in, day out.
I know I speak for everyone traveling as part of Class XII when I say we’re more than a little tired and missing our families. But we’re also wiser and more grateful for our time spent here. Leadership is about seeing as many sides of the issue as possible. Our adventure here now brings our worldview into a bit sharper focus.
Leave the porch light on mama. We’re coming home.
Buenos Aires Station…signing off…