Presentation Zen contrasts the understated presentation of Steve Jobs to the muddled PowerPoint of Bill Gates. I first noticed this article on the blog of one S. Godin of Buffalo, N.Y. Seeing Seth's presentation at the WOM vs. Advertising conference, I can assure you he practices what he preaches. His slides were the only ones I still remember. Well, besides that one dude's belly.
I'm very new to the presentation world, with my much feted debut at the same conference. Still, I wanted to be memorable somehow... So, since I was the last of about 164 speakers, I went escuela vieja by offering no PPT. I figured everyone was sick to death of bullet points and I wanted them to pay attention to my breathtaking visage for the full seven minutes alloted. As the day progressed, I was surprised that I was going to be the only unplugged act. Ergo, I became Un Vaca Púrpura.
Brilliant, no? "No" is the correct answer, because I didn't know what I was doing. Nevertheless, I've sat through 7,493 presentations that sucked and about 12 that didn't. And what stood out among the greats was:
1) Few to no PowerPoint slides, and
b) A speaker directly engaged with the audience.
I knew that if I was fiddling around with an unfamiliar laptop, I wouldn't be interacting with the crowd and would therefore suck. QED.
I'll need to fling some slides for future presentations, but I'll keep this Presentation Zen blog handy as I prepare.
technorati tags: Presentation Zen; PowerPoint; WOMMA
3 Comments:
Just tell me you aren't going to make your next presentation desnudo. :-)
Lo siento. No matter how often I'm asked -- nay, begged -- I don't work blue.
I know a few chicas who'll be sorry to hear that.
So true about the proportion of lousy to engaging presentations. If you're doing training, bullet points are cool. Otherwise, ppt is counterproductive.
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