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In Dave Trott’s new book ‘Crossover Creativity’ he talks about how Steve Jobs shook up the world of communication, actually the world in general, by introducing the iPhone. But, more interestingly about how most of the technology that is used in the iPhone had already existed at various labs and R&D facilities. The difference between Jobs’s thinking and that of the engineers and technicians who were busy developing all that technology was that those engineers and technicians were largely developing the technology for the sake of developing it; their thinking was sort of — we got the thing this far, now what can we do to it to get it to the next stage, how far can we develop it? This meant that the technology was becoming more and advanced but at the risk of being less relevant to people’s technological needs. What Jobs did, to shake up the whole system, was sit back and think about what people really needed not what the technology needed in order to keep advancing. Once he realised that people needed to be connected (to each other and probably to everything else in between) he then looked at the available technology and how it could be put together to give people that connectivity. You can look down at your iPhone now (or smart phone if you are not a purist). In effect he understood that the people’s needs were more important than the engineers’ needs, which were to keep on developing and improving their technology. This idea about what people need as opposed to what you can do with technology can be easily applied to presenting or writing for that matter (especially aimed at those of you who think Chat GTP is the new Holy Grail). I am amazed at how complicated the presentations I watch can be. How much information is crammed into each powerpoint slide, how many slides there are and how many of them contain images, tables, graphs and text all at sizes the audience have no chance of seeing, how many effects, fly ins, swipe outs, fades and sounds are used. Amazed at the vast amounts of information the presenter tries to deliver when all they need is a clear understanding of what they need to say, a minimum of carefully chosen words and some times images to support the message. The first reason we overload our presentations is the same reason the engineers and technicians couldn’t reset developing technologies that were increasingly irrelevant to people — because we can or because they could. Technology allows us to do that, so we do it — without thinking critically about what we are doing and more importantly why we are doing it. The second reason we overload our presentations is because we are not confident enough in what we know or can say about the subject we are presenting. Basically the visual and auditory effects, the overly complex information, the documents, graphs and tables crammed into slides are all smoke and mirrors that we hope will disguise the reality that we are not comfortable, confident or conversant enough with what we have to say. All as though we seem to believe that by presenting vast amounts of complexity we can convince the audience of the depth of our expertise and the soundness of our ideas. There are no fast answers, short cuts, quick fixes that help you get your point across. The reality is that there is no substitute for time spent strategising, designing, practising and deepening your knowledge of what you intend to talk about and how you intend to talk about it. Trust me, your audience will be grateful if you ditch as much technology as possible; be yourself, say what you have to say, say it well and keep it brief. Most importantly, if you do, they will remember you and what you had to say to them.
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