[Chuckit]

I found something I was looking for. The design website A List Apart had a good article a while back on how aesthetics help us convey information. The nutshell version: Attractive things are easier for us to understand, easier for us to trust and easier for us to use because our thoughts are biologically tied to our feelings.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I doubt that if Jobs' overheads were less sexy or aesthetically pleasing, people would find him less interesting as a speaker.

The introduction of the original 1984 Macintosh was all about what Jobs was saying. There were publicity photographs of the computer, but there wasn't a whole lot of sex appeal in them, because that wasn't the point.

You haven't actually watched that presentation, have you? It's all about the wacky self-introduction and presentation video (faked,btw) on the Macintosh screen. Whatever informative graphics and charts there may have been, nobody cares.

People remember steve's bowtie and the mac's Little Speech.

[0157988944]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

(faked,btw)

In what way?

[Spheric Harlot]

I thought I remembered it as having been an external machine piping the video onto the demo Mac's screen, but I was mistaken.

It was actually presented on a 512K prototype. The 128K of the original Macintosh couldn't have run the video.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?pro...showcomments=1

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I thought I remembered it as having been an external machine piping the video onto the demo Mac's screen, but I was mistaken.

It was actually presented on a 512K prototype. The 128K of the original Macintosh couldn't have run the video.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?pro...showcomments=1

Btw, here's a link to the video. This is awesome, truly computer history in the making.

http://tech.tinokaltsas.com/movies/1984macintro.mov

-t

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Obviously there is plenty in marketing a product that requires a visual.

However, a picture of an iPhone can be done with anything, including just loading up a JPG in Preview.app - which is my point.

It's not a very good point. What's he supposed to do - tell everyone to wait a sec until he can navigate to the picture via the Finder, then open it, then make it full screen, all the while wishing that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE would make a piece of software that you could use to prepare a presentation beforehand and bring up supporting visuals at the appropriate times with the click of a single button?

Things that truly require a visual don't need sex appeal to be informative and useful to the audience. A picture of an iPhone without a drop shadow isn't going to suddenly bore the audience just because it doesn't have some silly Photoshop effect on it.

Explaining Apple's increasing market share in the smartphone market is an example where Jobs' speaking capabilities far surpass any need for a visual aid. Ultimately, the audience is far more interested in what's coming out of his mouth than what his crack marketing team put together for his speech.

Different people learn in different ways. SOME people learn audibly. SOME people learn visually. SOME people learn kinesthetically (did I just make the word up?). You'll have the most effective presentation possible if you're able to speak to each person and the way that each of them learn. To say that "the audience is far more interested in what's coming out of his mouth" is totally neglecting the differences between people and the different ways that they learn.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You appear to be saying that Steve Jobs is an example of a bad presentation?

And you're using a pie chart that presents Apple in a good light at a public press event as an example to underline this point?

Are you for real?

She's right, though. The way he's using the graphic, it's misleading. I'm sure that was on purpose, but let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt. So this represents, at best, a mistake in his favor, or at worst, an attempt to brainwash us.

He's using the Reality Distortion Field again, combined with "How to Lie With Statistics."

A really good example of how presentation software can be used to distract folks from the facts.

[Spheric Harlot]

Or, you could say that he's simply doing an excellent job at making sensational numbers *look* sensational.

After all, just presenting a straight pie chart is just as "misleading", since tha actual news is that Apple got there from ZERO, while RIM is the incumbent.

And either way, it's been established that this an example of excellent presentational technique - whose purpose is todrive YOUR POINT home, not necessarily "objective" truth.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

To say that "the audience is far more interested in what's coming out of his mouth" is totally neglecting the differences between people and the different ways that they learn.

You're kidding right?!?! You need to learn that shif knows the only correct way things should be done in all facets of life. She knows the best way people learn from presentations and that only requires a .jpg opened in Preview.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by finboy 

She's right, though. The way he's using the graphic, it's misleading. I'm sure that was on purpose, but let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt. So this represents, at best, a mistake in his favor, or at worst, an attempt to brainwash us.

He's using the Reality Distortion Field again, combined with "How to Lie With Statistics."

A really good example of how presentation software can be used to distract folks from the facts.

The point here is effectiveness of communication. Whether you like what he's communicating is immaterial. You seem to agree that he got across the idea he wanted to very effectively, so you could have stopped right there.