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.

[vivek bansal]

very good.