# Showerthoughts: What small thing has had the largest impact on the Cdn Army?



## Bzzliteyr (22 Aug 2016)

I came up with this thought this morning:

Smallest thing that has had the biggest impact on our Canadian army?

The Tim Hortons in the Canex in Wainwright.

With the amount of people exercising through that base, there's no doubt it has affected morale. 

Thoughts?


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## rmc_wannabe (22 Aug 2016)

Moving into the Information Age 

The amount of planning, materials, staff hours, training, money and time we throw into maintaining a Digitized force is staggering. 

That doesn't even factor in the amount of Morale Comms we now provide for the same reason. 

The quote in my signature block sums it up pretty nicely.


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## Bzzliteyr (22 Aug 2016)

rmc_wannabe said:
			
		

> Moving into the Information Age
> 
> The amount of planning, materials, staff hours, training, money and time we throw into maintaining a Digitized force is staggering.
> 
> ...



What about all the extra man hours responding to badly written emails, misdirected requests, improperly filled filled form 12345 when is should have been the new, revised form 12346, etc?

Oh wait, I didn't specify "positive" or "negative" impact. What does yours fall under?


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## daftandbarmy (22 Aug 2016)

Leaders: both good and bad.


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## rmc_wannabe (22 Aug 2016)

Bzzliteyr said:
			
		

> What about all the extra man hours responding to badly written emails, misdirected requests, improperly filled filled form 12345 when is should have been the new, revised form 12346, etc?
> 
> Oh wait, I didn't specify "positive" or "negative" impact. What does yours fall under?



Depends who you ask and how long they've been in 

Digital Native vs. Digital Immigrant and all that jazz.


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## Haggis (22 Aug 2016)

Bad:  PowerPoint.

Good PowerPoint.


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## dapaterson (22 Aug 2016)

With you half way... disagree on the good side.


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## MJP (22 Aug 2016)

rmc_wannabe said:
			
		

> Moving into the Information Age
> 
> The amount of planning, materials, staff hours, training, money and time we throw into maintaining a Digitized force is staggering.
> 
> ...



I had that discussion with a peer that just came from one of the desks in the J3 shop in CJOC.  One of the first questions he normally gets is was is the connectivity or what is the connectivity plan and the folks ain't talking about DWAN.


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## Journeyman (23 Aug 2016)

What small thing has had the largest impact on the Cdn Army? 

A)  The penis size of whoever in Ottawa is behind introducing all the mindless badge changes (and now, flag changes);

B)  [Alternate charge to A...]   Chain of command being able to "cut & paste" without thinking.


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## SeaKingTacco (23 Aug 2016)

OPP.

It changed us from being a command centric military to a staff centric process military.

It has bloated Op orders from something readable in a trench to multi-volume sets.


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## daftandbarmy (23 Aug 2016)

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> OPP.
> 
> It changed us from being a command centric military to a staff centric process military.
> 
> It has bloated Op orders from something readable in a trench to multi-volume sets.



Accompanied by endless, unintelligible even to the presenters, PowerPoint slides.


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## Colin Parkinson (23 Aug 2016)

I would suspect the biggest change has been the ability to stay in touch with your families while deployed.


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## Furniture (23 Aug 2016)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> Accompanied by endless, unintelligible even to the presenters, PowerPoint slides.



Nothing is quite as fun as sitting in lectures all day looking at slides full of tiny text, while someone self important drones on and on reading every word on the slide.


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## Colin Parkinson (23 Aug 2016)

where you seriously consider slicing your wrists and bleeding out as an alternative


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## OldSolduer (11 Sep 2016)

Colin P said:
			
		

> I would suspect the biggest change has been the ability to stay in touch with your families while deployed.


I`m amazed at the progress.

Cyprus = 1 phone call per month for 10 minutes
Croatia = once per week for 10-15 minutes IIRC
Bosnia = when ever the phone booth was unoccupied.

I have no idea what happens now. Mike used to call us on a SAT phone from a FOB.


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## Jed (11 Sep 2016)

Loss of the Rum ration.  [


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## Jed (11 Sep 2016)

PDR and PER process.  

Lots of Political Correctness and paperwork getting in the way of real leadership action.


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## medicineman (11 Sep 2016)

Three Letters:  MBA.

MM


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## MJP (11 Sep 2016)

Jed said:
			
		

> Loss of the Rum ration.  [



Totally not gone.  Have done it several times in the past year.


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## rmc_wannabe (11 Sep 2016)

Hamish Seggie said:
			
		

> I`m amazed at the progress.
> 
> Cyprus = 1 phone call per month for 10 minutes
> Croatia = once per week for 10-15 minutes IIRC
> ...



In the past 5 deployments (operation and international exercises) I have supported post Afghanistan, We usually are providing raw internet off the bearer link for folks to Facebook or Email daily/hourly/minute by minute. 

I once Facetimed with my wife on her birthday from a field in rural Romania. Singing Happy Birthday in almost real time is revolutionary from a morale standpoint.


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## Jarnhamar (11 Sep 2016)

EMERGENCY family care plan for tomorrow's sudden early timing to attend the mandatory volunteer-chairity event.


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## FJAG (11 Sep 2016)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> With you half way... disagree on the good side.



You must have been very fortunate never to have had to give or to take a lecture supported by overhead projector slides made with a grease pencil.  ;D

PowerPoint - Good / some PowerPoint users - Bad

 :cheers:


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## Old Sweat (12 Sep 2016)

The answer is very simple. A four number set, One, Two-Three, One.  :cheers:

Semi-facetious, I'll admit, but it means we became a British pattern army with a tradition of extremely powerful and competent junior and senior NCOs and a penchant for considering directives from on high as the opening point in negotiations. The set also translates from, I dunno, Klingon, maybe as "there has to be a better way, find it."

Less positive, perhaps is a tendency to nit-pick and a belief in a large part of the army that dress regulations are a suggestion.


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## Haggis (12 Sep 2016)

Haggis said:
			
		

> Bad:  PowerPoint.
> 
> Good PowerPoint.



Let me clarify a bit.

Bad:  Endless PowerPoint slides read to me, an adult, like I was in preschool.

Good:  the evolution of briefings and lessons from talc and grease pencils to PowerPoint, particularly for those who must prepare them.

Baddest;  Those who must prepare them now have the ability to be easily verbose and pedantic during every presentation.


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## Happy Guy (12 Sep 2016)

FJAG said:
			
		

> You must have been very fortunate never to have had to give or to take a lecture supported by overhead projector slides made with a grease pencil.  ;D
> 
> PowerPoint - Good / some PowerPoint users - Bad
> 
> :cheers:


Concur.  I remember using grease pencils for a presentation on magnetic declination that I gave during a leadership course. Painful for me and much more so for my follow students / peers.


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## Lightguns (12 Sep 2016)

I remember a grease pencil lecture on EMMA Gees and the gun line.  Red indicating the arcs of fire.  There was lots of red lines, lots.....


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## daftandbarmy (12 Sep 2016)

Bad: Peace

Good (Unfortunately): War

Just sayin'.....


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## dapaterson (12 Sep 2016)

Grease pencils on talc forced people to reduce their speaking to points of importance. PowerPoint lets you add one more slide filled with gibberish and irrelevancies that detracts from the message, because the G7-4-92 feels ignored and wants to have his voice heard (even though it is irrelevant to the subject at hand).

Much as I dislike arbitrary rules ("decks may not exceed seven slides")I see the value every time certain people deliver 45 slide masterpieces, filled with distractions and lacking any relevance, with two or three important points buried somewhere in the dross.


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