After watching Dean Shareski's video last week on improving PowerPoint presentations, I followed one of his links to the website, Presentation Zen. Read a good post comparing the presentation styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. About halfway down the article there is a snapshot of the slides from each of their presentations. Gate's slides are cluttered and information dense. Jobs' are sparse yet much more appealing. Gar Reynolds, the author of the article made an interesting comment:
"Bill's slides aren't really necessary; they are more of an ornament or a decoration off to the side. Bill would have been better off just pulling up a stool and sharing his ideas and then answering questions that audience members could have submitted before the talk so that Bill could select which ones he'd answer."This got me to thinking about presentation styles. Both these men are leaders in their industry. Yet, in their presentations, I think Jobs plays to his strengths and Gates doesn't. There is a lesson in there for educators. We need to use what works for us. The job demands that we use a variety techniques. The art of the job is playing to our strong points as often as possible.
[Image: From post 'Learning from Bill Gates and Steve Jobs"; http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/09/steve-bill-redu.html]
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