Readers respond

I received a lot of email this week from readers concerning the last two posts on the presentation approaches of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I'd like to share this email below as it's representative of the kind of notes that have filled my inbox this week. David, a CEO for a technology company, says he began reading Presentation Zen after Guy Kawasaki recommended the site in September. Here's David's email (unedited):

Garr,

I did a seminar on Tuesday. Great feedback, everyone loved the content and everyone commented that the style was like nothing they had seen before and they wanted to know how I did it. (!)

What did I do? No text. Not one. Not even a vowel. The whole thing was just 14 images. Heck, I didn't even want to mess with Keynote or (gasp!) PowerPoint so I used iPhoto. ;-) Took me a while to locate the appropriate images in iStockphoto.com and about 10 seconds to organize them into iPhoto for the presentation.

The rest of my time was spent on content, not the presentation (slides).

And it showed.

Not only in the actual presentation, but also in my life. I didn't toil away the hours screwing with the presentation software. What did I do? I used that "gained" time to spend with my kids. Now THATS time well spent.

At any rate - I'm glad Guy turned me on to your Presentation Zen website. I'd been headed this direction for a while now, but your blog solidified it for me in about 5 minutes and I'm happy for it.

Yeeeeha! ;-)

David

Yeeeeha! indeed. Thank you to David, and to the many other readers from around the world. I appreciated very much hearing from you.

Breaking up (with bullet points) is hard to do
A couple of readers, however, claimed that my comparison was unfair since the "Apple way" or Steve Jobs Method is not applicable to every situation. My aim was not to say "be like Steve" or copy Steve's style. My objective was to show the possibilities and to expose the "Jobs Method" to people who may not have seen slideware used in such a way before. How you actually decide to use slideware in support of your own presentation content will depend on your particular situation. (I discussed more about this in a September 6th post called "What is good PowerPoint?")

I do not offer absolute rules for presenters, except that we should always make choices about content, design, and delivery in terms of what is best for our audience rather than what is most convenient for us. Very rarely (never?) is the "PowerPoint-as-usual" approach best for the audience. Simplicity can be a beautiful, powerful, and effective thing. But I never said it was easy. (Although, as David pointed out in his email...sometimes it is easy.)

Peter Drucker, 1909-2005
Today we all mourn the loss of Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker's writings were an inspiration to me back in my "salaryman" days with a big, Japanese corporation. I needed inspiration and wisdom back then. Lacking an actual mentor, I found that inspiration and guidance in the works of Peter Drucker (and Tom Peters, and a few others). Even much of Drucker's early work is still fresh today. An amazing man, and his work continues to have a large influence on me and many others. I feel I owe him a lot. I often use Peter Drucker quotes in my presentations (such as the one here for a presentation next month).

Comments

[burton hollifield]

I am intruiged by your presentation approach. It makes a lot of sense to me.

I wonder about using it for teaching technical material, like formulas or computations. Any advice on how to do a presentation where you are showing someone how to use a particular formula, and perhaps the derivation of that formula?

Bullet points are commonly used in that situation. But I know they are terrible.

[Mike Baron]

My favorite phrase: "the circle of clip art".

Thanks for a great article.

[Lars Zapf]

Dear Garr,

aftre first seeing your Blog I took me a whole day to dig into your way of thinking, especially presenting. I worked through all of your webites and links. It was like the first time I worked at a computer and sat in front days and nights. I have to make a really large compliment for the work you have done and the high quality postings in your blog. Next time I am in Tokyo I will visit a Design Matters meeting.

I fully share your opinion that the Steve Jobs Method is not applicable to every presentation. Yesterday I had to give advice to a guy preparing a presentation for an annual sales meeting and I think the mixture is the best way headed to the vision of "using as less text as possible".

If you do this special kind of presentations (I call it the Garr-style) you are often stamped as a freak or nerd, because the freaks and nerds sitting in the audience do not know what´s happening around them. (you must know I mainly work in a scientific domain, so your post about "The sound of one room napping" fits quite well)

I was also fascinate by the presentation from Dick Hardt as part of the OSCON 2005 Keynote presenting Identity 2.0. See it at:
http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/

With that I want to finish and make a final compliment... Good luck in the future!

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