stick to the 10-minute rule

University of Washington researcher, John Medina... once told me that no matter how engaging you are, your audience will begin to tune out of your conversation after about 10 minutes. That doesn’t mean you can’t reign them back in, but if you drone on and on you will most likely lose their attention.

Apple does a nice job of building in “soft breaks” to maintain the attention of the audience. [Tim] Cook didn’t speak for much more than ten minutes at a time. He would break up his slides with another speaker or a video. All the Apple speakers stuck to the rule. During his introduction of the new operating system, OS X Mavericks, Federighi included two demonstrations, both lasting under 10 minutes and both about 10 minutes apart. Although Federighi held the stage for more than 10 minutes, he provided soft breaks and kept the flow moving nicely: Slides-demo-slides-demo-slides.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

stick to one theme per slide

The designers behind Apple’s presentation slides once told me they stick to one theme per slide. Don’t try to cram too much content—too many ideas—on one slide. That goes for statistics, too. For example, think about how many slides you would create if you delivered the following idea: “The developer program is incredibly vibrant. We have over six million registered developers. Demand for this show has never been greater. We sold out in just over a minute [71 seconds].” Most people would put the two statistics, 6 million and 71 seconds, on one slide. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, had two slides. The first one simply read: 6 million. The second slide read: 71 seconds. The second slide also had the words “Sold Out” in red (see below). If a statistic is important enough for you to deliver and you want your audience to recall the data point, then it deserves its own slide.

Carmine Gallo

“10 Presentation Techniques You Can (And Should) Copy From Apple's WWDC Keynote.” Forbes. 6/11/2013

simplicity

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” declared Apple’s first marketing brochure.

Walter Isaacson

"The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs." Harvard Business Review the Magazine. April 2012.

avoid klingons

Jobs learned to admire simplicity when he was working the night shift at Atari as a college dropout. Atari’s games came with no manual and needed to be uncomplicated enough that a stoned freshman could figure them out. The only instructions for its Star Trek game were: “1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid Klingons.”

Walter Isaacson

"The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs." Harvard Business Review the Magazine. April 2012.

earn the faith of others

Many aspiring leaders think that leadership is about being the smartest person in the room, the loudest, the most charismatic, or the wealthiest. None of these is true.

It’s about faith. Start small. Achieve results. Earn confidence. Listen hard. Be empathetic. Think before you talk.

Over time, you will earn the faith of others. When you do, don’t let it go to your head. Don’t suddenly act like an ego-driven Master of the Universe. Once you do this, the faith that people have in you will start to erode.

Leadership isn’t complicated, but it is hard. No one ever said it was easy to earn and hold the faith of others. But it is easier when you understand that this is what powers all effective leaders.

Bruce Kasanoff

"Leadership in One Word = Faith." Forbes. 7/23/2015

a decent public speaker

It’s really not that difficult to be a decent public speaker. Just make sure you do these things:

1. Tell some honest, inspiring stories, preferably your own.
2. Begin and end with one simple message that makes sense.
3. Show pictures or nothing, but skip all text and bullet points.
4. Offer plenty of takeaways; stuff they can do tomorrow.
5. Make people laugh, a lot.

As long as your talk satisfies these acceptance criteria, nobody will care that there’s glue and duct tape all over it.

Jurgen Appelo

"How to Turn a Bad Presentation Into a Good One." NOOP.NL | The Creative Networker. 3/25/2015