Back at Work...

... after the holidays. I should have more time to blog now.



(This is one of my favourite Dilbert cartoons.
Seeing inverted commas around the word 'Powerpoint' makes me feel old)

An Excursion

picture by Believe Collective

On Monday I received an unexpected summons to the Strategy and Planning Department - they wanted me to brief them on the progress of Project Phoenix.

My spirits were lifted, as I don't often get to visit the C-Suite on the 27th floor. "I would be delighted", I emailed back, "I am free any morning next week between 10 and 12".

They suggested 3pm the following afternoon.

Everyone likes to go up to the 27th floor.

Not for the thick carpets, free mineral water and expensive art on the walls, but because it reassures us that our company don't all spend their time performing reconciliations, testing SOX controls, writing progress reports and wrestling with the automatic bulleting software in Powerpoint.  Nope, up on the 27th floor we also make plans, decisions and budgets. "It's like work", I was once told by an indiscreet SPD staffer, at his leaving drinks, "but makes you feel really important - and without having to connect to the outside world"


I had sent my slides ahead, and when I arrived in the SPD conference room, there was the quick thrill of seeing my presentation printed out and bound up, a pack neatly at each seat at the table. But this time something was different and seeing our familiar Phoenix logo brightly on each cover page I gave a sort of squeak of surprise, and was too much taken aback to hold my tongue: "You can print in colour!",  I said. "Yes," they said, "we can print in colour, We have that privilege"

I hurried through my presentation, which was entitled Whence Project Phoenix and which asked whether the stakeholders were realising the benefits from which and indeed by which the project was justified.  After five slides I was interrupted by senior MD who looked up from his blackberry momentarily to ask "Sorry, but who exactly are you?". I smoothly referred him right back to slide one, and was allowed to continue.

All in all I think it went pretty well: I didn't losing my thread, and I got to the end without asking if there was anyone there from Tarporley.

But I wish someone had warned me about that colour printer: If I had only known I would have taken the trouble to make sure that all green traffic light symbols adorning my handouts were, well, green.

Working 5 to 9

The Bachelor by Yankees Man.

This last fortnight I've been working like a dog.

Well, OK, not exactly like a dog: not rounding up sheep, sniffing out drugs, helping blind people cross the road or fetching dead birds in my mouth. Nope: for this dog it's mainly Powerpoint, for there's nothing like a change in management structure to raise the demand for slides.

I should write a book about it:

An introduction to Powerpoint in Business.

1. Content: how to judge the quality of the MIS by the layout of the slide.
2. Avoiding the complete sentence: how to write in bullets.
   
3. Advanced Formatting: how to fit the Executive Summary on one page without reducing the font size)
4. Powerpoint by Committee: the importance of versioning and the futility of style.
   

When one is working silly hours blogging sometimes feels like homework. Perhaps it would work better on a slide....

The limits of human knowledge

Every once in while, commuting home, I encounter a strange singing duo on Kingston Loop. They have been going a long time now - it might be 15 years since I first saw them - and I'd put them in their 50s or 60s. They make money not from guilt or embarrassment in the way that the young hostel-seekers do, but from their humour: They earn their crust from comedy songs with strange lyrics and not-bad-harmonies, backed up by a thin-sounding guitar; they accept Luncheon Vouchers and Rupees and they collect their money in an omelette pan; they are probably at least half mad; I like them.

They only have two songs, the first is called "This Train" and is a duet:

"This train......."
(...calls at Vauxhall, Queenstown Road, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Town...)
"This train...."
(...is composed of eight coaches and you'll find the guard situated in the middle carriage)
"This train.....".
(...has first class accommodation, for first class ticket-holder only)
"This train....."

They rarely get through the song without being drowned out by the on-board tannoy, which, of course, is the whole point.

I thought of those two, last Tuesday night, while I was listening to the three-quarters-crazy David Gamez opine on the Limits of Human Knowledge at the ICA

"Can you go a go a bit slower, please" was the first question from the floor, as an excitable Gamez rattled through slides of impenetrable powerpoint, gabbling in incomprehensible philosoperese

(....,nonotreallyiveonlygoteightminutestosumupabout300pagersofmynewbooksoI'mjust goingtothrowthisatyouandhopeyougethegistofit")

"Only five minutes, now"), piped up the chairman, helpfully

Just 2 minutes - but fully 17 slides - previously, Gamez had told us there was no such thing as objective time but now, in the face of a watch and an impatient chairman, he folded completely and - was it possible? - he speeded up

(...however, positive scepticism is self-reflexively challenged because it does not place the aspect of positive scepticism above others. This forces the positive sceptic to endorse aspects that directly challenge it, and positive scepticism is led by its own arguments into an unstable sustaining/ negating relationship with the labyrinth of theories around it)

You are quite right: I didn't note that down, I copied it off his website, but I swear that's what he said. He also said that there's no such thing as truth; there's no such thing as knowledge and he couldn't be at all certain that we were real people, rather than aliens.

That last thought was entirely mutual, and there's not a speaker in the land who wouldn't have given an arm and leg to follow a performance as poor as Gamez.

Apart, that is, from Mark Vernon, former priest turned "passionate agnostic" who was next up and who read, entirely devoid of passion, from his script about....well I forget. Or Stuart Sim who promised belligerent atheism, but never came close.

It was a relief when we got to artist (and not philosopher) Emma Kay, who makes art ("digital print, on paper", I ask you) which explores the depths of her own ignorance. The Bible from Memory, Shakespeare from Memory, History from Memory, The Complete Series Two of the Catherine Tate Show from Memory. (OK I made the last one up). Odd, yes, but also oddly compelling, and at least she made sense.

As did - to be fair - the coherent, logical, lyrical and plausible chairman Hilary Lawson, a man whose promise was seemingly cut short in the Lower 6th when he encountered Epimenides' Paradox in a vulnarable moment, and has never being able to shrug it off since.

"The trouble with saying that there is no such thing as objective truth", he lamented, plaintively, "is that the statement in itself sounds awfully like a claim to be an objective truth".

A logical black hole, with a whats-the-point horizon which even a long career in philosophy has not equipped him to overcome.

-0-

If there is a limit to human knowledge, it's certain Google haven't heard of it and by the miracle of the net, and the power of Google, the other hit of of the singing duo on the Kinsgton Loop is actually available for you to hear (hat-tip to the OCD-fascinating London Underground blog)

It's a protest song. A protest against not being allowed to have a wash and shave in toilets at Waterloo

"for if you can't have a shave in a toilet", they sing, "then where can you have a shave?"

Now that's question to which answer really is beyond the limits of human knowledge.

Natural Leaders

In the workplace there are two types of people. Either type can accidentally ESC a powerpoint presentation leaving themselves abruptly, and unexpectedly, staring at strange screen. Easily done.

When this happens one type of person looks helplessly at the screen with palms upturned, perhaps stabbing at a button or two; the other type yell "Press F5, John!", from the audience.

Career Prospects

Last week, to the ill-disguised dismay of my boss, I stood up in the middle of a meeting and left work early - 6pm - in order to go to a careers evening. I thought it would be interesting and unusual opportunity to find out what other people really do all day, and how to get the best jobs.

There were over 40 speakers at the event covering every class of profession imaginable from Animal Behaviourist to Zoologist. Participants could select four talks to attend. Readers, I have seen the future, and it's in the web 2.0 media. My choices were Professional Poker Player, Reality TV Contestant, Captcha Decoder and Shill Bidder.

Arriving late, I found my name down for the less than exciting quartet of Solicitor, Investment Banker, Barrister and Advertising Executive.

Very traditional, very Job 1.0, I wasn't really on the edge of my seat. But still, one of those four is not a million miles from what I already do all day, so I reckoned that at least I might get some tips on what it's all about

So, what did I find out? Well, I did discover what it is that they all do - that they all do: it's Powerpoint. But don't leap to the conclusion that all these professions are similar: Oh no - Powerpoint styles can differ. So here is

botogol's guide to Powerpoint in the Professions

1. Investment Bankers do it with closely stacked tables in 10-point Arial, crammed with jargon and information. Cannily they bring their .ppt on a memory stick and borrow the equipment they find. They summarise the executive summary.
   
2. Solicitors do it cramped in a small corner unable to find or understand the full-screen option. They have handouts with spaces to make notes. They give powerpoint slowly and cautiously. They never allow a slide to transition ahead of a mouse click.
   
3. Advertising Execs do it on vast titanium Powerbooks, with steel speakers and bright OHPs with calf-leather carrying cases. They do it with sound effects and video.

(Barristers don't do powerpoint. They do photocopies.)

The professionals were there to explain their jobs and to offer useful advice to supplicants, and in their differing approaches to this task also they couldn't help displaying their innermost souls.

• The Barrister advocated his job. Extolling its virtues he was lyrical, persuasive and eloquent. He had been asked to attend the evening 25 minutes before it started.
• The Advertising Executive pitched his job. He wanted us to believe, he desired us to apply. He knew he had the best job in world and wished us to share his conviction.
• The Investment Banker bigged up his job. He knew it was important and he didn't really care whether we did or not
  
• The Solicitor dissed the Barrister. Whatever career we chose, he said, don't be a Barrister. Above all, he said, don't be a Barrister. Useless good-for-nothing Barristers. Had we been to see the one this evening? Wasn't he dreadful?

Did I mention that I was at the evening with my daughter? To tell the truth the event wasmore ained at her really. She had arrived earlier than me and consequently chose - and got into - a wise selection of realistic and dependable 21st Century professions: Diversity Co-ordinator, Eco-Lifestyle Advisor, Reality TV Presenter and Virtual Estate Agent. She tells me they all did great Powerpoint.

If I had my time again at least I now know what I'd be: Barristers Clerk.