Customers who blight the shape of the BMW sign do not think that the colors and their location hint at the flag of Bavaria, and the sectors in the circle symbolize aircraft propellers (the engines to which Bavarian Motor Plants once made). This sign is good only because it is on good cars.

Artemy Lebedev, “Kolodstvo”, § 103 .

The presentations that Steve Jobs made are considered (deservedly) vivid, interesting and memorable. After his death, the title of the coolest speaker of companies in the technological sphere does not have an unequivocal owner, but one of the promising candidates is undoubtedly Ilon Musk. He is not so close to the world of IT (wearing a jacket!) And outwardly it seems unlike Jobs, but between them you can find a lot in common. Many experts (including Megamind), dissect their presentations in search of a recipe for success. Captain Obvious in my face wants to note that the main part of the success of Mask and Jobs is not in the area of ​​performances. But I will go further and say that learning to perform, repeating their style, can be dangerous.

What do they have that others don't have?

It is necessary to make an amendment to the conditions in which Jobs and Musk are located, to the resources that they have and to the products they are talking about.
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Resources

The observation that Jobs' speeches: - the result, among other things, of massive collective work behind the scenes, is true, but for ordinary mortals they often even have to rehearse in that room and exactly in the conditions in which the performance will be, there is no possibility, far behind the scenes the collective work to lead. That is, the advice there is all right, but they suggest such opportunities that most people do not have.

Please take a look at this short (three and a half minutes) video a decade ago, in which Steve Jobs says that Macs will have Intel processors, and Paul Otelnie helps him in this:



This is really very, very cool done. But who among us has the opportunity to bring out from the fog a man in a spacesuit with a wafer in his hands? And even if such a possibility exists in principle, will Intel CEO go to us as a clown? Jobs’s demonstrations, among other things, had such an effect that he managed to attract very large-scale people to them. And this, in turn, was possible because Jobs did cool things not only on stage.

Products

Here is another famous piece from Jobs' speeches: Macbook Air in an envelope.

It's beautiful, right? But where is the presentation? From the very beginning, was the Macbook Air not conceived of as very thin, so thin so that you could hit everyone with this? All this performance looks as if it was conceived at a time when Jobs endorsed the TK to develop a new laptop model. If you first figure out how to hit the audience at the presentation, and then make a product with exactly these properties, then everything will work out for sure. If you can follow this advice, you will not lose.

Notice that the same effect works on the presentation of the first iPhone:

It is much easier to declare a revolution, having a revolutionary product. Jobs begins with the fact that Apple has twice made a revolution (Macintosh and iPod), each time completely changing the industry, and is now ready to do it for the third time. Further, he speaks about three products, which then turn out to be one, is also a wonderful move, but doesn’t it again remind us of the technical specifications for a new phone? All these properties appeared in it not by chance, but were laid from the very beginning of development.

Here, speaking about the products, I will mention Mask, here is a video from the presentation of Tesla Powerwall (a battery that, in combination with a solar battery, is designed to create a 24-hour autonomous power supply):

In short, the meaning of the presentation is such that it is easy to switch completely to solar energy, for that, everything is already there. He demonstrates this by the example of the needs of the United States. The piece, which strikingly reminded me of Jobs, starts at 12:20 and lasts 55 seconds, here is a link to the beginning .

The whole building, lighting, screen, air conditioners, Wi-Fi and-what-there-else-it works on batteries, charged solar panels, located on the roof. All this is preserved sunlight, Musk says poetically. Here it is, a demonstration of the product's capabilities, creating a wow effect. The only problem is that you need to have a suitable product.

In general, all the recommendations about the passion, inspiration and surprise of the audience - in my opinion, not at all about the performance, but about the work as a whole. I am sure that there are things about which, in the key of passion, inspiration and surprise, one cannot simply take and tell if they have not been made from that very beginning.

Reputation

Another point that should not be forgotten is reputation. It allows you to make presentations on 100% of sales, from which all the boring technical details about how it works are excluded. Reputation makes listeners, without any evidence, believe that everything really works as stated . In my opinion, the success of Jobs' presentations (and Mask, yes) is due to three factors approximately in such proportions (this is not the result of scientific measurements, but my value judgment):


By this I want to say that if you study the manner of performance and imitate it, without having the appropriate product and reputation, the result will not be exactly the same.

What can you reuse?

The recommendations that people derive from Jobs presentations are mostly good. Another thing is that many follow them, but it’s really really cool that rarely happens. Nevertheless, we will go through the lists and note what suits everyone.

Minimalistic, graphic slides

Both Jobs, Mask, and many other good speakers have slides containing only supporting materials: pictures for emotions or some vivid data. The slides do not have a complete copy of everything the speaker says . The presentation is the speaker himself, and the slides are only supporting material in those places where you need to show something.

How to be with those who want to download and read slides? How they, poor things, will understand? And for them it is better to make a separate text document.

As for the slides of the “obligatory picture and a lot of bullets” type, which Jobs supposedly lacks, here:

There are really no bullet symbols here, but their spirit is present, and nothing spoils. The main thing is not to abuse.

Detailed rehearsals

Rehearsals should be done as detailed as possible. If you remember exactly what should happen at what point in time, what order to tell, where on the slide what is located and what height on the screen you can reach with your hand, this opens up a lot of new possibilities. You will have more brain resources to react to something unexpected, such as equipment breakdowns, and there will be dramatically less parasitic words (because you don’t have to simultaneously say and make up the following sentence in your head). And on the cheat sheet, too, do not need to read. Rehearsals rule.

Leave only the most important

Only that which is important for the audience, that which solves some problem of the people present (sometimes contrived, but still). No need to read the entire changelog of the new version, it is better to beat several of the brightest, shock points from different sides.

By the way, some people attribute Jobs a special love for the magic number three, but, in my opinion, this is far-fetched. There have been four points and two. Just not twenty.

Heroes, antiheroes

The recommendation to show competitors' products and point out its weaknesses (as at the beginning of the story about the iPhone) is very dangerous. This without the right product and reputation will not work exactly. It’s safer when the source of the problem that you are talking about is the environment. However, the very overcoming of the problem in the story should be necessary.

A wish

In conclusion, I would like to wish everyone such work and such projects, which you can naturally talk about with passion and inspiration, and the remaining components of successful presentations can be copied purely technically.

Bonus for attentive readers who got to the end

Have you noticed in the very first video (“Announcing first Intel Mac”) data manipulation?