16. Presentation Advice from the iPhone: Substance and Style in Your Story

The colossal success of the iPhone and its big brother, the iPad, are due in large part to their high-concept design, which, in turn, offers a lesson in crafting your story. This analogous viewpoint comes from Bill Portelli, the president and CEO of CollabNet, a company that provides a platform for distributed software development. Mr. Portelli noted that the iPhone has three basic qualities:

• Simple

• Intuitive

• Assumes the intelligence of its end user

Anyone who owns an iPhone—or who has looked over a shoulder at someone else’s iPhone—will agree that Mr. Portelli’s observation is spot on. A well-told story should have the same basic qualities:

• Simple. Most presenters make the fatal mistake of overwhelming their audiences with too much information, also known as TMI. In the parlance of the highest of high technology, you have to make your story easy enough for your mother to understand.

• Intuitive. Your story is brand new to your audience, and so they need a logical context to process your content. Provide them with a clear flow, and keep them in the flow by using linkages as you move through the individual parts of your story. Make it easy for them to follow, and they will follow your lead. Make it hard for them, and they will make it hard for you.

• Assume Intelligence. Give your audience more than the usual boilerplate features, benefits, and facts. Your audience has been there, done that, and they get it. They need and can process more. Add value and dimension to your story with examples, analogies, anecdotes, evidence, current data, and customized content.

Apple touts the iPad’s multitouch screen as one of its main features, which provides another analogous piece of advice to presenters: Connect with your audience at multiple touch points—through their eyes, their ears, and their brains.

When you tell your story, be a Mac.