Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation (five lessons for making an unforgettable pitch) | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation (five lessons for making an unforgettable pitch)

businessweek.com

13 pointsnickb7 comments

Sometimes CEOs give boring presentations on revolutionary products. More often they give boring presentations on boring products. Steve Jobs has a huge advantage when it comes time to show his work because he produces such earth-shattering stuff. His salesmanship is the the icing on the already-delicious cake.

Jobs does often end up being in the position where he can sell some pretty awesome products, but he's also adept at finding reasons to find things awesome in the first place. If he'd sold OSX by dryly listing its features, you might think "ah, UNIX, yeah, probably good idea, failed before with AUX, though". But when Jobs described OSX to people, they came away thinking "wow, this is a major leap in operating systems design." Part of this is pure charisma and great delivery. Another part of it is just a knack for picking up on genuinely great aspects of a product that others might not think to highlight.

Agreed. Though I should point out that Jobs is partially responsible for that advantage.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/01/the_myth_of_...

The takeaway? Build up to something unexpected in your presentations.

That's the only takeaway?

Jobs appeals to nostalgia and positions Apple as the heroic company making the world a better place for people to live in. It's emotional and genuine if perhaps a little exaggerated. That it builds up with dramatic tension is just the basic foundation of the speech. It's the details and romanticism that put it over the top.

Which is why I don't get the whole "charisma" or "reality distortion field" claims. He's just this guy, you know?

Point 3 about vocal variety is not as easy to do as you might think. You need practice. Toastmasters is a great organization for learning to speak well in front of groups, prepared or extemporaneous.

My club meets in Boston near Downtown Crossing on second and fourth Wednesdays at noon. Or look on the Toastmasters International web site (http://www.toastmasters.org/) for a club near you.

http://ourdoings.com/oratory-authority/

The advice of having one point per slide and using an image instead of lots of text should be in a message that pops up everytime someone starts Powerpoint.

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