Spy Briefing PowerPoint Syndrome
A few days ago, I posted about M’s speech to Bond in GoldenEye. Go watch that again: at a certain point, she quickly presses some buttons to reveal a TV and a ….PowerPoint (?) about General Orumov.
This is what I call “spy briefing room PowerPoint syndrome.” No matter what happens, someone always has these presentations ready to go.
It’s is a trope in spy movies that has always fascinated me. They always seem to have these ready-made presentations about the bad guys, complete with pictures, videos, and detailed stat sheets. They then immediately start talking over them, reciting statistics and detailed histories, or they have someone else in the room do it, as if it was rehearsed. They must prep these in advance because no one is ever seen fumbling for the information or trying to share their desktop — it’s always one button and voila!
In my other life, I work in the field of content management and enterprise software. I can tell you that I’ve never seen things go as smoothly as this.
Some guy is compiling all examples on screen of the “photographs connected by red string” trope. Some other guy wrote an entire book about how science fiction interfaces can be used to learn about how we should design for today.
I feel like there are lessons to be learned about how well fictional spy agencies manage their PowerPoints.