I just came across some photos by Niall Kennedy, taken at the introduction of Microsoft’s latest money-making monstrosity, Microsoft Live. Just what I want, ads in my word processor. I don’t want to waste any more breath commenting on the product; it’s the presentation that interests me. Or appalls me, to be more accurate.
How can the most successful technology company in history, run by the richest man in the universe, stand in front of the world with such incredibly lame slides in their presentation? They look like something put together by a high school kid who just discovered clip art and shaded backgrounds.
Is it just me? You be the judge
Here’s one of Bill’s slides…
and another…
Makes me want to scream! Geez…the two headings aren’t even lined up vertically!
And what the hell are those four double-headed-arrow things?
For contrast, here’s one of Steve’s slides from a few years back (his current images are even better, but couldn’t find any good shots of those)
Here’s a link to all of Niall’s photos. Be warned, they are not for the faint of heart (or anyone with any aesthetic sense.)
This is kind of funny acually, about 3 weeks ago Bill Gates came to my campus (University of Waterloo for the curious ones). I’m the Apple Campus Rep there and I proudly watched the presentation with my Apple shirt one; it wasn’t planned I swear I simply had some demos to do that day.
Anyway this talk was prmoted as Bill Gates comes to talk to students about the future of computer science. Beyond the presentation being completely lame (other than the fact that he used Napoleon Dynamite to try to associate with cool) it really had nothing to do with the future. It was really more of a failed attempt at a sales pitch for Office 2003 and XBox 360.
Although I’m only an undergrad I;ve been doing research with faculty and grad students and during the talk some of us looked at each other in a way that sort of said “if he’s gonna talk about 10 year old advances in Human Computer Interaction couldn’t he have at least gotten it right or made nicer slides.”
Simple presentation rule… people will read whatever you put on screen. If people are reading the screen, they aren’t listening to you. Simple bullets, one-line headers, etc. are key to ensuring people glance at the slide, don’t even ‘read’ it but just absorb it, but then immediately turn their attention back where it belongs – to you. The slide behind the presenter gives the audience a constant reminder of the overall message you are delivering, but keeps them focused on you. About the only time you’ll see text-heavy slides in an Apple presentation is product specs. How many of you have been reading one of those slides and realized you missed something Steve said?
Steve Jobs would NEVER accept going on stage with slides like that.
I guess it speaks volumes about Bill Gates’ complete lack of taste. That missing quality in his personality is channelled down through the whole organisation …
If your boss does not appreciate simple, elegant design, then you are certainly not encouraged to produce it, nor encouraged to enforce on your staff that they produce it.
The qualities of an organisation are to a large extent a reflection of the qualities of the leadership.
At least it’s consistent with the Fisher-Price inspired design scheme of Windows XP’s UI ….
nobodysir: the problem is that they _do_ hire geniuses for this. A genius would say that’s a great slide. Look at all of the information! But, that doesn’t make it an effective slide… The problem comes from having the geeks do design. Geeks should write code etc. Designers should design.
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Obviously some MS employer´s 3-grader kid is the creative mind behind Gate´s presentations….
How to kill a presentation
Bill Gates demonstrates how to effectively kill a presentation with information overload. Writers Block Live says,
How can the most successful technology company in history, run by the richest man in the universe, stand in front of the world with such …
He IS one of the smartest businessmen around…
It is a style! Probably works for him. Somehow it seems to be more innovative and brave than the steve jobs presentations…
Could it be that Bill Gates is using Powerpoint while Steve jobs is using keynote?
Has anybody been to an IBM presentation? They target my market (life sciences) with all kinds of white papers and big vision presentations, and I find it ironic that their white papers have very little white space, and their powerpoints are cluttered and confused.
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Gates may not be a natural presenter like Jobs is and the slides may not be as ‘tasteful’ as the Apple ones, but this is just reflective of the fact that Apple is the designer label when it comes to technology while Microsoft is about bringing computing to the masses. While Apple spends its time/money on making things (products & presentations) look slick, Microsoft is heads down in emerging markets figuring out how to get an average family in a 3rd world country to afford a computer or how to get shared computing into villiages to make peoples lives better. Two very different companies with different philosophies.
So, 3rd World Perspective, far from being just another global megacorporation hell bent on re-engineering yesterday’s innovative ideas in a haphazard way, on a platform as stable as a bag of crisps, Microsoft is:
“… heads down in emerging markets figuring out how to get an average family in a 3rd world country to afford a computer or how to get shared computing into villiages to make peoples lives better.”
… and therefore seemingly a branch of the UNITED NATIONS and not at all just acting like a VERY BIG CORPORATION ALL OVER THE WORLD AND STUFF…
I had literally no idea and will now look up MS’s charitable tax-exempt status!