Write Your Report

The days of licking your pencil lead and pressing hard, you are making four copies are long behind us, but some of our departments haven't quite caught all the way up, yet. However, when budgets are tight, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Consider this example of thrifty technology thinking:

I do quite a bit of training for an equipment manufacturer, and as part of that training, we distribute CDs and DVDs that contain lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations, as well as videos of the equipment in use. These are instructor-level classes, and the idea is that the folks that we train will go back to their agencies and use the materials from the disks to train their own people. We've all been through training like this: PowerPoint slides and a lecture, with videos embedded in some of the slides. The training is usually run off of a computer that is plugged into an LCD-type projector.

Of course, when you're handing out thousands of disks, to thousands of trainers, there are bound to be some problems. While some of the trainers are very computer literate, most are middle-of-the-road computer types, and some are hopelessly inept when it comes to that kind of technology. It's probably a good example of a Bell Curve in action.

When I teach my classes, I usually offer that anyone in class that has a problem with the materials can call or email me for help - and every once in a while, someone does. Most of the problems are fairly typical, but occasionally I hear of one that makes me sit up and take notice. This is one of those.

I got a phone call from a former student that was getting ready to teach his first use-of-force class using the materials I had given to him. He had it pretty well figured out, except that - no matter what he did - he could not get the videos to play. Every time he hit a PowerPoint slide with an embedded video, it just would not play the video. Frustration and irritation were setting in, and he finally called me for help.

We spent a long time on the phone, working through a long list of troubleshooting ideas. Of course we started with the simplest things (Is the projector plugged in Fred?). Nothing seemed to work.

Finally, knowing that he was using a department computer, and knowing that some departments don't exactly have the most up-to-date computers and software, it occurred to me that he might have an old copy of Microsoft Office, and that his version of PowerPoint was incompatible with the video files we were using. I asked him if he had experienced any other problems with his software. He said that his whole department was using the same software, and no one had ever experienced problems. I had him try the disk in a different computer with the same flawed result.

Finally, we decided to check out the version of PowerPoint his department was using. Now, anyone that has ever tried to talk someone through a problem solving or troubleshooting process over the phone knows how frustrating it can be. You're working through the steps from memory, while the person you're trying to help is trying to understand what you're telling them to do. Sometimes this can go on for a long time, and can get very frustrating for both parties. That became the case here, as I was asking him to tell me what version of Microsoft products he was using, and he was trying to accommodate me.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when he couldn't even find the Microsoft Office entries on his menu. Finally, out of sheer frustrating, I had him start reading me the entire list of installed software. He was correct; there was no entry for Microsoft Office.

There was, however, an entry for something called OpenOffice. Aha! Once again the ugly head of simplicity, and don't out smart yourself popped up.