How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

With the passing of Steve Jobs, there has been a lot of comment about his life and his presentation philosophy.

In the recent biography by Walter Isaacson, there are numerous references to Steve Jobs’s thinking on presenting and one in particular stood out for me. The quotation:

“I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking,” Jobs later recalled. “People would confront a problem by creating a presentation. I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

This has always been a bug bear to me too. I simply cannot understand why anyone would want to use PowerPoint in a meeting. PowerPoint kills conversation, it puts slides at the centre of attention and it creates an atmosphere of staleness and boredom. The very things that prevent any kind of solution or idea being found.

The best meetings I have attended were where there was a proposal, typed on paper and given to all meeting participants before the meeting, and then everyone had an open and frank discussion about the subject. Often, new ideas were found or new angles were discovered about the original proposal, but one thing that happened was that people actually talked and discussed the idea.

The opposite meetings were where the organiser spent the first ten minutes trying to get his or her computer working, then completely dominated the meeting with slide after slide of boring text and poor quality clip art and pictures. There was no discussion and quite often a lot of confusion. The meeting ended and nobody knew what they were supposed to do.

PowerPoint and Keynote have their place, a product launch to a few hundred journalist, a training seminar where the slides are used to inform and teach. But a meeting to discuss a proposal or to come up with a solution to a problem is not the place.

Take a look at the video below. Here you see Steve Jobs talking to employees from Apple about the problems Apple was facing in 1997, and the solution. Note there are no slides, just Steve up front and centre talking to his staff, and then a video at the end. Had he used PowerPoint,it would have killed the effectiveness of what he had to say.

Recently I have noticed something good, which is leading to something not so good.

Steve Job’s has very publicly changed the way many people present. The days of bullet pointed, text filled slides are numbered. More and more presentations are now being done with images, video and simple, one line sentences. And this has been partly achieved by the Steve Jobs’ Keynote presentations.

But this now leading to another problem.

I have noticed an increasing number of presentations presented using the black to grey gradient background and the standard Gill Sans font. In fact, when I look around slideshare the number of presentations now done using the standard ‘Apple Keynote’ style is alarmingly large. It is true that this style is a great style. It has a pleasing hue, it does not hurt the eyes and it is simple.

But here is the problem. If you look around the presentation blogs, You Tube and other media resources, you will read countless criticisms on PowerPoint because of its “standard” setting. But what I am seeing is now the same thing happening with the “standard” Keynote slide. Everybody seems to choose the slide design above.

There is an an expression in English “too much of a good thing is a bad thing” and my fear is that is is beginning to happen with Keynote. Keynote is great. I do believe it is better than Powerpoint. But there is so much more to Keynote than the slide above.

Above is a screenshot of the slide design options in Keynote. There are many more than the “Gradient” and if we really want our presentations to stand out, then we need to start using the other design options to give our audiences variety and something different.

I know that most people using Apple products today, do so because they want to be different. The old Apple slogan “Think Different” really means something to these people, as it does me. But that is what Keynote users really need to remember to do. “Think Different”

I am not Steve Jobs, and you are not Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is a great presenter and we can learn from him. But we do not need to copy him. Copying him is not the way forward. Copying is not creative. To me creativity means taking an existing idea and making better by putting our own individuality on it.

It is time to continue the change from bullet pointed, text filled slides, it is time to be creative and it is time to move on from the “gradient” slide design and bring in your own individual creativity.

Over the years I have attended many presentations where the speaker was not a native English speaker. Where the speaker was highly intelligent, the content of the talk was excellent and subject was highly informative, yet there was something that made the presentation just die. That something was the speaker sounding like he or she was reading their script. There was no emotion, no passion and it sounded like a robot was speaking.

You could write, and prepare the best presentation ever made, but destroy it in the first 30 seconds if you do not use rhythm, intonation and pausing in your presentation.

Let’s take a look at the 2007 launch of the iPhone. The beginning of the presentation, Steve Jobs talks about what Apple has been doing, how the iPod has been selling, and other updates. He then pauses. The screen behind him only has an Apple logo, he clears his throat and begins ” this is a day I’ve been looking forward to for 2 and a half years…” he then pauses again.

Watch the video below. Notice how Steve Jobs builds the excitement by using pauses, slow speech and intonation.

Now try reading the following out loud without pausing or changing the tone of your voice:

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years. Every once in while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Apple has been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these in to the world. In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple; it changed the whole computer industry. In 2001, we introduced the first iPod. It didn’t just change we all listen to music; it changed the whole music industry. Well, today we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class…”

It just does not have the same excitement or passion.

What you have to do, is to practice your presentation over and over again, practice the pausing, practice the rising of your tone and the lowering of you tone. Speak loudly, then quietly.

I have been teaching business English for many years, and many of my students, whose vocabulary, listening skills and understanding of English is excellent, fall and fail when they stand up and give a presentation because they forget to use any kind of rhythm.

So, next time you give a presentation, remember to practice your speech. Remember to slow down, take you time and enjoy putting stress, emphasis and tone into your words. Not only will you enjoy the experience more, but your audience will too.

Good luck.

For more information on this, an excellent source is Carmine Gallo’s book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs