Book Review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

Yeah, the other Steve Jobs book which you can order by clicking on this link: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

I recently picked up a copy of this book. And by “picked up” I mean it was a gift from the amazing Suzanne Larocque (blog | @FemmeFoto) who wanted to help me become better at presenting. The only downside to the gift was that I received it the week before the PASS Summit, which meant is was far too late for me to incorporate any of the ideas into my talks at PASS.

Or was it?

And and even better question: Was I already doing some of the things mentioned?

I read the book in one evening, I simply could not devour it fast enough. Not because it was an amazing piece of work, but because I was fascinated by the structure. For the areas where I felt I was already succeeding in my presentations it was nice to have that affirmation. And for the areas where I am lacking it was nice to just ponder how I could alter my style but still remain “Tom”.

So, first disclaimer: I have been presenting and speaking to groups of people for over 20 years. I know that shocks some people, for different reasons I’m sure, but it is true. And I still get nervous every time.

Second disclaimer: I don’t think for a moment that I am Steve Jobs. And reading this book won’t change that. But I do have a desire to continue to get better at how I present my talks, whether it is at a SQL Saturday, a local PASS Chapter, a product demo for Confio, or while I introduce a keynote speaker for the PASS Summit (yeah…that WILL happen in 2012, so maybe the Mayans were right).

So what did I learn from the book? The section headers say it all, really:

1. Create the Story
2. Deliver the experience
3. Refine and rehearse

Now, there’s a LOT more to it than just that, but those three points are enough for me to rethink how I have been building my talks previously. One of the finer details mentioned in the book is a chapter called “Reveal a ‘Holy Shit’ Moment”, which has details accounts of presentations such as the time Jobs took that MacBook Air out of a fracken envelope while saying the words “the worlds thinnest notebook” over and over to the point you think Jobs had an MBA in “re-education”.

For most people I know that build talks they never really are able to accomplish ‘creating the story’, they just put text onto PowerPoint slides. It is something I struggle with as well. Two years ago or so I started doing my best to create the story first before I ever built one slide. I’d like to think it has helped my talks, given them more structure than they would have had otherwise.

And of course there is the delivery style. You need to know when you can make a joke, or when to pause, or raise your voice, etc. Lots of those details are in this book as well including the need for an antagonist (I plan on using @SQLClippy).

Oh, and one more thing: I need more props for my talks.