Presentation Rant 5: Jobs the master, even then

Buddy Jules passed on this link he knew I'd love, which is some archived video from Apple's press conference (more like event) to launch the Macintosh in 1984. Replace the bow tie then for the mock tee and jeans now and you've got pretty much the same Steve, his reality distortion field evident more than 20 years ago. I am reminded of the great Lawrence Lessig quote that "Power corrupts, but Powerpoint corrupts absolutely" and wonder how business presentation got this way. I've even seen some folks using Powerpoint as their layout tool for documents. Now the "deck" has become commonplace. Is there some linear comfort in it? I do like it for printed plans (mainly because it allows me to write less and seem like it's more), but can't stand it for presenting. Call me an Apple zombie but I like Keynote mainly because it is stripped down as far as what I can do. Image quality, positioning accuracy are more prevalent in Keynote than Powerpoint or anything similar. If I knew Flash well, I'd probably use that as the delivery tool, but knowing how these things sometimes change content within minutes of the presentation starting it probably won't work. Yet another reason to keep what's on the screen simple, broad, so you don't have to worry when you change a word or phrase. Aren't our ideas big enough to accommodate that?

Actually, I'm trying things a little different for the next few presentations. While a template may be created early on the presentation development process. I'm gonna do my best to stay clear of Powerpoint or even Keynote until I storyboard the whole thing out. It will wind up being pages with a few columns, for what is being said, who is saying it, what are the screen visuals, what are physical props. It's performance art isn't it? So I'll try and treat it like that and see how it goes. Wish me luck.