How to botch a demo
(Notes taken while watching multi-touch in Microsoft’s next OS release, Windows 7, being demonstrated for the first time.)
Don’t perform the demo yourself. Bring someone else onstage to distract the audience while making the demo appear complicated enough to require a specialist.
Wear distracting clothing. It’s a small thing, but remember to wear clothing that calls attention to yourself. Bright colors are better than muted, shiny better than flat, and choose a color that contrasts with the microphone you’ll be wearing. Jewelry is good; a large watch is a given. Bonus points for décolletage.
Speak quickly. The faster you talk, the more you can say. Simple, really. And speaking quickly will keep your audience struggling to keep up and less able to understand your message.
Encourage interruptions. If people ask you questions mid-sentence, stop what you’re saying to respond. Fragmenting your presentation like this will make it harder to understand your message, as will the back-and-forth between speakers.
Wave your hands in front of the screen and camera. Motion attracts the human eye. Move your arms around to keep people looking at you rather than the screen.
Use technical terms. The audience doesn’t have to understand.
Focus on the technology, not the solution. Make the technology look like another bullet item you’re adding to the product. Look, we have feature X!
Use uninspiring examples. Focus on obvious ideas the audience has already seen. Avoid glimpses of an intriguing future.
Reveal other features, but refuse to talk about them. This is a great way to distract the audience from your message.
Above all, don’t enthrall. Keep the presentation dry. Show the technology and nothing more. Don’t show excitement or anything else that will raise the audience’s interest.
Nice n’ sarcastic, just they way I like it when it comes to MS
After years now of watching Steve Jobs, MSFT still doesn’t understand the art of presentation (of course, neither do 95% of the rest of the world’s CEOs). This is an art, and if you don’t learn it, it looks silly and stupid and you don’t get your message across. I guess the maker’s of Powerpoint can’t seem to find any other way to demo something than what they have done for the last 25 years.
You really nailed this: where are the solutions? The iPhone is great because it is a solution. People who use it understand what it does BETTER than other smart phones. I can do the same things that this demo did with a mouse. They never said, “this will solve problem y.” All I saw was a gimmicky way of maneuvering items on a screen. That will last about ten minutes.
The demo wasn’t quite that bad, nor was it very good. She did point out that touch would be used when appropriate as a complement to the keyboard and mouse. It does seem that they have an interesting technology in search of a problem. On an iPhone touch is huge because it is a mobile device and you just use your fingers for driving it and the screen is relatively small. On a desktop or laptop there is less use for touch. There is not much difference in clicking on an object from touching it. The photo manipulation looks fun but doesn’t seem practical. You can already do that well with a mouse and keyboard. We’ll see. Once we all have this it may seem very natural. It was interesting that someone commented how the screen was becoming dirty after only a few minutes of use. Imagine people walking past your desk and dragging their fingers across your screen after eating donuts. I also wonder about inadvertent clicks. People like to poke at the screen just to point at something, not to invoke an action.
Performed with the sleight of décolletage.
What a stupid critique – but what would you expect from an Apple fanatic? You give Mac users a bad name!
Being sexist and snobbish is a strange attitude for someone who purports to be far superior than the rest of us mere mortals… yet finds the demo explanations ‘too technical’. I find that hilarious as she explained all of the concepts very simply and clearly. ..
Look, I use MAcs, iPhone, Windows, Linux and Solaris.. they all get the job done and they ALL (including Mac) have their shortcomings. Can we get off this PETTY biased OS evangelism – and replace it with some logic?
bob, I appreciate your comment. My critique was about the quality of the demo and its effectiveness – not about the technology. I also use all of the technologies you mention and appreciate their shortcomings and advantages, but unless you regard any critique of anything Microsoft-related as evidence of fanaticism, your comment seems groundless with regards to this post. As it is, it seems you’ve confused criticism with elitism, and a mention of décolletage with sexism. I intended neither.