Comments on: Presentation Skills 101

By: simonr

simonr — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:29:53 +0000

nobodysir – there are differnt kinds of genius! You’re right about geek-genius not being the ones who should be desinging slides; to them it’s actually ABOUT getting as much functionality into as small a box as possible. The more my box (phone, PDA, computer, whatever) does the better.

But a presentation isn’t a gadget. A presentation should be designed by a genius at designing presentations… like whoever designs the Apple ones.

We’re a presentation skills training company and we design for people who really (REALLY) shouldn’t be designing for themselves. The downside is that it takes longer to design the presentation, of course, because we need to work on the style/presentation AND know about the product. However, one rule of thumb we use is that if the geek can’t explain to us what he’s trying to put into the presentation well enough for us to understand him it’s an absolute cinch that it’s the right thing to do for him not to be presenting….

…. and I’m only half joking here!

Simon

By: nick

nick — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:10:26 +0000

p.s. great site!

By: nick

nick — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:08:30 +0000

I know I’m a few months late but…

Apple slides are text book great slides. Very simple, clean, good colour etc. A brilliant example would be a sales figures pie chart (i.e. iPod market share). I don’t have one, but they are fantastic. The MS slides I have seen are just awful. Far too cluttered and loaded.

As for the 3rd world angle, wow! I would say that MS have prevented cheap PCs rather that helping, of coures Apple computers are more expensive. That’s their market.

By: lex

lex — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 10:38:43 +0000

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!

By: 3rd World Perspective

3rd World Perspective — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 19:07:43 +0000

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.

By: Dominik’s Journey ;-) » Blog Archive » Why presentations matter

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 19:00:12 +0000

[...] e are two great links analysing the presentation style: Bill Gates and visual complexity Presentation Skills 101 This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, [...]

By: TheBizCast

TheBizCast — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 15:21:02 +0000

[...] Bill Gates – inside the mind of confusion [...]

By: biff

biff — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 16:23:04 +0000

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.

By: Jibone

Jibone — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:47:40 +0000

Could it be that Bill Gates is using Powerpoint while Steve jobs is using keynote?

By: earthv

earthv — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 15:00:21 +0000

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…