Global Strategy - blog

A weird thing has taken place a couple of times now... I have been to a very weak lecture and asked some of my peers their opinions about them. To my surprise, I generally get totally contrasting views of my own. People tend to be extremely fascinated about those lectures I mostly dislike.

Let me tell you an example. Some time ago quite recently, I attended a lecture given by an old professor about a late, influential philosopher here at the LSE. Monotonous and thin voice of an old man, combined with no aiding material whatsoever (not to speak of powerpoints) added to a not necessarily thrilling story was a shocking combination. The whole occasion was a complete antithesis of the seemingly interesting topic of the talk. After the first five minutes I deeply regretted of skipping my training because of this public lecture. And it did not become any better.

Next day, I asked some reflections from familiar faces I spotted in the audience (had a lot of time to do that). To my surprise, both of them liked it a lot! No complaints of even the style of presentation, which seemed to "put it nicely in the context of the olden days" for them. All this left me really baffled.

Is there something in the organisation studies / management style of presentation that alienates us from the ‘old school'? Literally, the vast majority of powerpoints (if I even see them) are white background, black text (times), usually in heavy, direct lighting. Philosophy people just do not seem to take the time to think of even the basic issues of presentation. I know it's about ideas and elaborations, but still. If the technicalities (or their absence) make it more difficult to follow the argument, maybe there is some room for improvement.

Or perhaps there is a dimension of snobbery involved. Maybe presenting things crudely underlines their self-identity as a ‘philosopher', who knows?