The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: The Real Deal Behind The Reality Distortion Field
11:59 pm, September 13th, 2009, Carmine Gallo
Steve Jobs made a welcome return to the public eye last week at a special music event to introduce Apple’s 2009 holiday iPods.
“The September music event was classic Apple. It marked the return of the world’s greatest corporate storyteller,” says communications coach, Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.
Gallo’s book will be published later this month by McGraw-Hill and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon. Gallo’s written some insightful analyses of Steve’s presentations in the past, so we asked him to take a look at last week’s event. After the jump, Gallo breaks down his top ten presentation tips from Jobs’ latest speech.
Create memorable moments. Every Steve Jobs presentation has one moment that leaves everyone in awe. These “moments” are scripted ahead of time to compliment Steve Jobs’s slides, the Apple website, press releases and advertisements. At Macworld, 2008, Jobs pulled the new MacBook Air out of a manila inter-office envelope to show everyone just how thin it was. Bloggers went nuts and it was the most common photograph of the event. At last week’s “Rock & Roll” event, the “water cooler” moment wasn’t a product at all. Instead, it was Steve Jobs himself walking onstage after a long, health related absence. He told the audience he now had the liver of a mid twenties person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for such generosity,” he said.
Posted by Carmine Gallo in Apple, How-To, Opinions, Steve Jobs | Comment on this article
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Carmine Gallo is the author of 
Why do you refer to yourself in the third person?
nak, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Very good post. Was a great read. Thanks!
Dylan, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Interesting article to read. Thanks.
Johnny, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:36 am
I recognise and appreciate that hits = $ so I understand breaking this up over several “pages,” but geez louise ELEVEN PAGES?? That’s just money-grubbing, sorry. Six would have been about right.
Shenanigans like this actually hurt the story (just check Digg comments any time a story not from Ars Technica goes over half-a-dozen pages) by losing “busy readers” and by annoying faithful readers. It also makes me question the motivation behind presenting the story — am I really going to get some useful info if I stay with it, or am I just being used to drive up the hit count and will end up with an unsatisfied feeling at the end?
Better editorial judgement about how long you can string readers along, please …
Charles Martin, on September 14th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I agree with the above post. I’m afraid I skip these articles with so many pages because it’s too annoying to have to keep clicking from one page to another.
Matt, on September 14th, 2009 at 9:45 am
The problem is that if you try to copy steve jobs “reality distortion field” your audience would not think:
-Wow that guy is great at speaking!
Instead they will chuckle to themself and think:
-Wow, that guy thinks he’s Steve Jobs. What a looser.
D, on September 14th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Meh, Jobs is good, but he’s no Billy Mays.
J, on September 14th, 2009 at 8:09 pm