Book reviews

This article from Business in Vancouver September 14-20, 2010; issue 1090

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How To Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

By Carmine Gallo

McGraw-Hill, 2010

In spite of the title’s hype, I found this book to be full of useful advice about presenting.

Much of its message seems obvious – show your passion, tell stories to keep the audience interested, don’t fill your PowerPoint slides with too many bullet points. But how often do we refrain from showing our passion or telling stories for fear of appearing folksy or unprofessional?

Steve Jobs, legendary Apple co-founder and CEO, is famous for his charismatic announcements of new Apple products, incorporating stories, humour and messianic passion.

The best takeaway for me from this book is the way in which Gallo turns the usual method of preparing presentations inside-out.

Rather than beginning by opening presentation software, great presenters dispense with slides for most of their preparation time and use that time to conceptualize. How can your message be distilled into a powerful tagline? Why should the audience care about what you are telling it? How will your product change your listeners’ lives?

For a one-hour presentation with 30 slides, presenters should spend up to 90 hours on preparation, including 27 hours researching the topic, consulting experts, organizing ideas and sketching the shape of the presentation. Only one-third of the time is spent on creating slides. The book shows examples of Jobs’ slides, featuring almost no text, and his accompanying words.

Often, Jobs breaks from his slides to provide a live demo of his new product. There, his passion for the product and the way it will transform users’ lives blazes through without the distraction of slides.

When Jobs presented the new Apple MP3 player as “iPod. One thousand songs in your pocket,” the tagline provided headlines for media coverage around the world, allowing Apple to control how its product was portrayed.

This book is so full of useful wisdom that it should come with a checklist. Some suggestions that I particularly like are:

•sketch the broad strokes of your presentation in pictures or words before creating any slides or script;

•start out with your big idea and its tagline – why should the audience care about your topic;

•create a villain. Show the dangers that your product will prevent or fix, then reveal the conquering hero – your product; and

•describe the benefit that your product will provide to users; benefits are more captivating than features.

And don’t be afraid to demonstrate why you are so passionate about your product.

Jan Wallace is head of the David Lam Management Research Library at UBC’s Sauder School of Business.

Greed

By Richard Girling

Transworld Publishers, 2009 (new in paperback)

Acknowledging that greed has been a catalyst for both good and “evil,” Girling offers us witty observations and wide-ranging arguments in Greed. He fixes his journalistic eye on the Olympics, the war against drugs, immigration and nationalism. He shows African aid as a disguise for First World self-interest and then turns the table and exposes the corruption and bureaucracy that burdens that continent. Despite the occasional overstatement, Greed is a good read. So buy it or borrow it.

E-Habits: What You Must Do to Optimize Your Professional Digital Presence

By Elizabeth Charnock

McGraw-Hill, 2010

After years of running a digital analytics company, Charnock packs her experience into E-Habits, laying out steps you can use to present your digital persona and help control the information about you that floats in cyberspace. With guidelines on best email practices, social networking and online shopping, E-Habits is a handbook for the digital age. The “digital me” at work changed after reading this book.

What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly

By Paco Underhill

Simon & Schuster, 2010

Who makes the buying decisions in your house? In What Women Want, Underhill warns businesses of the costs that come from ignoring the female consumer. Underhill looks at the growing importance of women in the marketplace, and argues that our preferences have become options enjoyed by everyone. So, for example, I don’t want a pink car – but I do want one that I can get my bike in and out of without breaking my back. You’re welcome.

Treena Chambers is the marketing technology co-ordinator at the UBC Bookstore.