Carmine Gallo is a Silicon Valley presentation coach who is making the rounds promoting his book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. As part of that he was interviewed on IT Conversations. As I start to pay more attention to speaking and presenting these sorts of podcasts become of increasing interest. (And if they wanted to send me a copy of the book I would be happy to read it and write a review here.)

  • Practice and Rehearse. Out loud and over the period of weeks, not hours before hand.
  • A good presentation has drama. Introduce an enemy at the beginning and slay it by the end.
  • Buyology – brands and religions rally around shared enemies
  • Bullets are (other than ironic since this is all bullets…)
    • Too many words on a slide are ineffective. And usually the path to too many words are paved with bullets
    • If Steve Jobs doesn’t use them, why should you be?
    • Create a presentation, not a ‘slideument
    • It is just laziness to put everything onto one slide
  • Make the first 90s gripping
  • Every presentation need to have one main theme. And make it twitter friendly
  • Introduce the problem before the solution. (Part of the drama aspect)
  • Words + Pictures winds over just words or pictures
  • Take baby-steps towards a Jobs-esque presentation. Start by breaking it up with interesting visuals
  • 10 minute rule – the brain searches for other information after 10 minutes
  • The presentation is not about the slides. It is about the presentation. The slides just complement the presentation.
  • Don’t start the presentation creation process by picking up the software tool. Movie directors don’t start a movie by picking up a camera. They plan, storyboard, etc.
  • It is not about the software, it is about the story
  • Get out of your slides during the presentation
  • When finishing up the presentation delivery
    • Review
    • Go back to your theme
    • The last 90s needs to be just as polished as the first 90s
  • You have to believe in your product
  • Have a sense of passion and excitement
  • Successful entrepreneurs are not our to make money; they are out to make meaning – Guy Kawasaki
  • 3 tips
    1. Inform
    2. Educate
    3. Entertain

edit: It should be noted that these are not my tips, but are taken from the interview. In reality, I’m guilty of breaking more than a few of them.