[Sigia-l] Smackdown: Edward Tufte vs. Don Norman

[Karl Fast]

Are bullet points evidence of having thought something through?

To recap: when I gave my CEO a ten-page document describing our
project, summarized from a much larger document, he told me this was
evidence that I had *not* thought enough about the problem. He
wanted a bulleted powerpoint of the project. That would be evidence
that I had thought it through.

Ziya has suggested that he may have been right.

Maybe. Certainly that is what he needed--a highly distilled version.

But it is not what *I* needed. And it is not what the other people
on my team needed. We needed a much more detailed description of the
project. Coming up with bullet points and stringing them together is
pretty easy. Supporting those points with gory details is something
else entirely.

Interesting that the CEOs attitude here is exactly the opposite of
what people are taught in school, the approach advocated in many
books on writing, and the method I use to develop any paper or
presentation.

Scientists do not work this way. Imagine submitting a a bulleted
powerpoint to a peer-reviewed journal.

  Journal: This is just a bunch of bullet points. You have provided
           no evidence to support your argument. You are wasting our
           time.

  Author:  But my CEO said that bullet points were evidence that I
           *had* thought about the details. 

So maybe it is better to think of it as a cycle:

 1. create outline
 2. write draft and flesh out ideas
 3. revise outline
 4. revise draft
 5. repeat 3 and 4 until ideas are fully articulated
 6. create bullet points for people who are too busy, lazy, impatient,
    or distinterested for the gory details 

In scientific circles, that last step is either skipped or used for
presenting lectures and conference papers. The hard work is moving
from the hasty bullet points to the reasoned bullet points.
 
So, if bullet points are evidence of having thought something
through, then after writing this email, I should have deleted the
text and sent just the distlled version:

  - do bullet points mean thinking it through?
  - my CEO said no
  - ziya said maybe he was right
  - ceo needed distilled version
  - my team needed detailed version
  - opposite of:
      - method taught in school
      - method used by writers
      - method I used for papers, talks, etc       
      - scientists
  - journal paper as bullet points? HA!      
  - conclusion: it's a cycle
  - and recursive!
  

-- 
Karl Fast
http://www.livingskies.com/