Apple’s Steve Jobs returned to a standing ovation at a special music event in San Francisco on Wednesday, September 9th. In a heartfelt and intensely personal moment, Jobs told the audience that he had undergone a liver transplant. “I have the liver of a mid-20’s person who died in a car crash. I wouldn’t be here with that person’s generosity,” he said. Since his fight with pancreatic cancer, Jobs seems to have become more introspective, at least publicly. He detailed his hopes and fears in a 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University; a speech which stands as one of the most viewed commencement addresses on YouTube.
The remainder of the September 9th Apple music event was classic Apple storytelling. Jobs and the other speakers used many of the techniques revealed in my new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. Among the techniques:
The Rule of Three. A Steve Jobs presentation is typically divided into three parts. The Rule of Three is one of most powerful concepts in writing. The human mind can only retain three or four “chunks” of information and Jobs is well aware of this principle. During the September 9th event, Jobs outlined the presentation into three areas: iPhone, iTunes and iPod. Jobs was joined by other executives to introduce new features and offerings for each product.
Share the Stage. Jobs rarely gives an entire presentation by himself. Instead he surrounds himself with a supporting cast. In this case, he introduced Apple execs Jeff Robbins (software designer for iTunes) and Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP of Marketing. Several game developers were also invited on stage to talk about their new games for the iPod platform.
Make numbers meaningful. Apple presenters never leave big numbers hanging without placing those numbers into perspective. For example, Schiller said that Apple had sold 220 million iPods to date. “That’s 73% of the market,” he said. Schiller took it one step further, and got a laugh, when he said Microsoft was pulling up the rear with 1% market share.
Think visually. Apple presentations are strikingly simple and visual. For example, there is very little text on a Steve Jobs slide. When Jobs talked about the popularity of iPhone around the world, his slide showed 18 flags from different countries. When he talked about lower iPod prices, the new price was accompanied by photos of the iPods. This is what neuroscientists call Picture Superiority; ideas are more easily recalled when text and images are associated with one another.
Add a sense of drama. Sometimes, but not always, Jobs adds “one more thing” to the end of the presentation. On September 9th, the “one more thing” was the addition of a videocamera to the new iPod Nano.
Steve Jobs is the most extraordinary communicator on the world stage today. Learn all of his techniques in the new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, available everywhere books are sold.