The Kawasaki Method: an enlightened presentation approach

Following up on a recent post on Guy Kawasaki's highly touted presentation skills, let me point you below to an article featuring excerpts from a recent presentation by Guy which you may find interesting.

Remember that Guy's presentations almost always follow a "top-10" format — essentially ten slides and ten major ideas. That's it. Simple. Although it is not officially recognized as "a method" like the now mildly famous "Takahashi Method" in Japan, I will from now on refer to Guy's presentation style as "The Kawasaki Method." You may want to do the same. Who knows, maybe by naming it, an actual movement of sorts will develop across the planet. Guy's method — the "Kawasaki Method" — is not a panacea by any means or the perfect method for every presenter or every situation. It is one enlightened, simple method among others. No panaceas or "final answers" on presentation design or methods exist.

This article on the Always On Network features excerpts from a recent presentation by Guy for Autodesk's "Realize Your Ideas" tour. In the first part of this presentation,"Make Meaning," Guy shares his thoughts on public speaking and the genesis of the "top-10" format ("Kawasaki Method"):

"One of the things I learned about in the formative stages of my career was public speaking. I learned by watching lots of presentations, and one thing I figured out early on is that most CFO-level speakers — particularly CEOs, particularly male CEOs—really suck as speakers. They're boring; they're long; they wander around. I saw speech after speech, and I discovered that if there's anything worse than a speaker who sucks, it's a speaker who sucks and you have no idea how much longer he or she is going to suck. That's a horrible feeling.

To prevent you from getting that feeling, I've developed a Top 10 format. All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I'm going to suck."

                           — Guy Kawasaki

Read the rest of the presentation excerpts on the Always On site.

Comments

[J D Moore]

People love lists of things, particularly "top" lists. There's something about presenting this way that lends the list credibility, even if you pulled it out of your ear and have no real credentials. The audience has at least a subconscious assumption that some external criteria were used to: place the things on the list, decide which things weren't on the list, and pick the order they go in.

Letterman was onto something. And of course his top ten list is one of the more popular parts of his show.

[Tom McKay]

Thinking in terms of lists (top ten, three best, five things, etc,) also helps us organize our thoughts.

I'm sure Guy would agree, it's much easier to write an article (as I did recently) on "24 Ways to Attract More Clients" than simply write an article about marketing in general.

Much more appealing to the reader/ listener, too!

BTW, the "24 Ways" is a freebie, if anyone's interested.

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The worst feeling at university was always watching the lecturer load up his powerpoint slides, and seeing the number of slides counter ticking up, up, up…

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Funny you mention PowerPoint… Kottke linked to this Washington Post article basically condemning PowerPoint for “encourag[ing] ‘faux-analytical’ thinking that favors the slickly produced ‘sales pitch’ over the sober exchange of information.”

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The audience has at least a subconscious assumption that some external criteria were used to: place the things on the list, decide which things weren't on the list, and pick the order they go in.

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Was a presentation worth watching. I loved it.

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Guy really is the master when it comes to presentation, and marketing in general. His is one of the few blogs I regularly read.

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Wow. Awesome stuff. He's a master at presentation

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The worst feeling at university was always watching the lecturer load up his powerpoint slides, and seeing the number of slides counter ticking up, up, up…

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People love lists of things, particularly "top" lists. There's something about presenting this way that lends the list credibility, even if you pulled it out of your ear and have no real credentials. The audience has at least a subconscious assumption that some external criteria were used to: place the things on the list, decide which things weren't on the list, and pick the order they go in.

[Hamo]

lol, interesting approach, I think another good idea is to get the audience to interact by giving away stuff to people who ask good questions. Candy Bars, Gold Balls, Bath bombs, stuff like that works well and gets people excited.

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The audience has at least a subconscious assumption that some external criteria were used to: place the things on the list, decide which things weren't on the list, and pick the order they go in.

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I feel the secret to public speaking is making the audience to be engage. How will you do that? That is something I need to learn and this post has put a light into.

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It was an excellent presentation. Nice way of putting it together.

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Presentation skills surely require a strong personality and unwavering self-belief - which is often found in people that are not too intelligent - so how can we listen to them ? Best to listen to people with no presentation skills they often talk more sense.

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Ten slides with ten major ideas, this man Guy looks like he's an excellent presenter. I will try to do my essay on him for my public speaking class.

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Really want to see this guy present to see if he is, as good as they say.

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Presentation is the base method of marketing. You can't make a success without good presentations. Thanks for posting.

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Was a presentation worth watching. I loved it.

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I think 10 points and 10 slides is plenty for a presentation. No sense in making it too long for people to follow

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He does have great presentation skills no doubt about that! However, on a different note, he gets a little annoying with his constant automatic updates on Twitter.

[Cindy]

PowerPoint is often way over used. Just like when you created a report at school, you spent way too much time making should the folder, the pages, and everything else was top notch when you should have been spending more time on the content.

Charismatic speakers can make just about any topic sound engaging. Quite a talent!

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I think another good idea is to get the audience to interact by giving away stuff to people who ask good questions.

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The top ten format is also great for keeping the attention of the audience. Guy is one of the best for using this system and it works very well for people who are just plain scared to death of public speaking.

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[Jupiter Jack]

It seems that public speaking is a lost art form. I wish that professional athletes were required to take speech classes so they would not sound like such idiots all the time.

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Probably the thing that helped me the most is practice. If you are prepared for your speech then it will go well. Also, the more you are in front of people the more comfortable you become with being in the public eye which helps a lot too.

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Everything is numbers (list), "The ten most", the "7 best", "the 25 smartest". Somehow it grabs attention

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[Johnny Bravo]

lol, interesting approach, I think another good idea is to get the audience to interact by giving away stuff to people who ask good questions. Candy Bars, Gold Balls, Bath bombs, stuff like that works well and gets people excited.

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[Hank]

Capturing the audiences attention is such a crucial point with this method. But once you get it you have to keep it. Kawasaki has some real talent when it comes to this.

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Wow. Awesome stuff. He's a master at presentation

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Yes,I am also agree with J.D Moors,that we need to add some attractive figures to compel to our customers.

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It was an excellent presentation. Nice way of putting it together.

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[Irene]

Who's Guy Kawaski? Is he famous?

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Nice quote. I like this type of approach.

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Whenever I make presentations, I feel fine when I'm going up there, but soon I start to get nervous. :/

My presentation method is firm and works, but I just can't seem to get in the right mindset for my heart to not start beating so fast.

[Sergio]

I do not use in PowerPoint, inconvenient program, which requires large amounts of memory.

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I think this is a highly ingenious idea of how to present a speech. Makes total sense and even adds a new dimension to it.

I will watch out for this, I have to admit however that I have rarely felt that I was waiting for a speech to end, maybe I haven't been to enough speeches.

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[Craig]

Guy is one of those genuinely great people with great ideas, there aren't many people like this. Possibly one of his most impressive attributes is his ability to see a goal, go after it and in the end reach it.

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Gotta present things well in life if you want to be a good presenter or salesman of any kind. Thanks.

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