Good presenter though he undoubtedly is, I don't think Steve Jobs is as faultless as his many admirers claim. Garr Reynolds is a fan - and does a great job over at Presentation Zen of anatomising the latest Jobs performance - launching the iPhone. Maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe it's a non-tech savvy thing, but Jobs doesn't appeal to me in the way that he obviously does to Silicon Valley types.
He's too slick.
And in this spun-out, cynical age, in the minds of many, slick = fake.
This is an interesting communications issue; it's a problem for presidential hopeful John Edwards.
Communicators once aspired to slick. These days, slick doesn't endear itself to people. Who wouldn't admit to just a little bit of schadenfreude when Slick Steve's clicker fails part way through his iPhone presentation?
Tentatively, I suggest the antidote to slick, and perhaps the Holy Grail of B2B communication in the email age (heh heh), can be found in the combination of authenticity, brevity and, er, provisionality.
Put better: be you, be brief, and above all, be a work-in-progress.
Demonstrate that you are communicating your own values in your own words. Demonstrate that you've taken care to leave out everything extraneous (you respect your audience's time more than your own). And offer up something unfinished; open to other ideas and points of view (those of your audience); welcome challenge. Be Protean.
This is an era of ambiguity, doubt. Anyone who stands on a stage and makes out like he's got all the answers is probably one click away from nemesis.
I agree. He goes on far too long. When do any of us get the pleasure of an audience happy to hear us chunter on for that long without a coffee break?
Posted by: Kim Stricklin | January 23, 2007 at 08:40 PM
I'm a big fan of Jobs. I've had a Mac since they were introduced in '84. I think his presentations are sounding too much alike.
I think he should come off that stage and walk through the audience. With a camera tracking him, they could show all that love up close. I couldn't help wondering who got their ass kicked later when his remote failed to work. It got a snicker out of me.
But he has a great style, friendly and approachable. Sure he rambled on and on, but this is his twice a year opportunity to gloat. I watched the keynote on-line later. When I got bored I just jumped ahead in the video.
I didn't think it was too slick. Just too long.
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