Should we use any notes in Presentation?
Have you watched the latest Steve Jobs’ Keynote Address at Macworld San Francisco 2007? Watch it. Get a feel on what is a great presentation. Spot how he builds up anticipation and excitement.
It is interesting to see couple of comparisons around the blogosphere with Steve Jobs and other guest speakers’ presentation style in the keynote. To highlight one, Presentation Zen has a great analysis on the presentation and a summary on bloggers’ comments.
To summarize his summary, not many people like Stan Sigman’s (CEO of Cingular) speech. In particular, Sigman uses 3×5″ index cards, and awkwardly reading and presenting from it.
Did Jobs use any notes? Yes, he actually used them for sections that require less dynamic, but more precision on steps - a product demo.
Take a look at Steve’s demo notes, in a close up shot.
As Garr at Presentation Zen mentioned the danger of using presentation notes:
• Notes destroy fifty percent of the interest in your talk.
• Notes prevent contact and intimacy with the audience.
• Notes create and air of artificiality.
• Notes make the speaker look less confident, less powerful.
• Make lots of notes in the preparation of your talk, but use them only in the event of a total emergency.
• If you must use notes make sure the audience does not see them. That is, “…endeavor to hide your weakness from the audience.”
A take home lesson? Learn and practice your speech, and stop relying on your notes.
On the other hand, notes are good if you need to deliver some accurate information, such as a step-by-step demo, so that you won’t miss anything. Just make sure you don’t read it awkwardly.
What is your story on presentation? Have you ever delivered a presentation without any notes?
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Comments
Jacob says on January 22nd, 2007 at 9:25 am
Please, please, please, use notes. Discouraging notes encourages memorization of a script. A script turns a speech into a collection of words such that, if someone forgets the next word, they are incapable of finding a new one to express the same idea. Nothing destroys the connection to the audience like someone stopping to think about the next word on the page. Practice the speech as much as possible and take an outline or keyword reminders with you. Don’t use them unless you need them, but please don’t try to memorize a script.
todd says on January 22nd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
In my field, education, I’d say 99% of presenters use notes–they’re called PowerPoint slides! Which is worse–making slides of what would have been on 3×5 cards pre-ppt, or the 3×5 cards themselves?
KwantlenBBA Grad says on January 22nd, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Leon makes a great point, take home your notes and practice. I have seen hundreds of presentations, many of the presenters I knew personally. In most cases, even the most knowledgeable presenter who had not taken their notes home (or even outside of the office) seemed as if they didn’t know the material as well as they really did.
Personally, I like both powerpoint slides and 3×5’s. I tend to use the 3×5’s for point form notes; writing only the exact point I wish to make not how I plan to say it. Then I use the PPT slides for exact points, numbers, and visuals.
Dan Ridley says on January 22nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
To be fair to Sigman, it wasn’t just his manner that was awkward; the content of his speech was corporate drivel that nobody in the target audience wanted to hear. ‘We’re changing our name back to AT&T. We locked Apple in. It’ll be six months before you can have this phone. We’re changing our name back to AT&T.’ Index cards or no, it wasn’t going to be the highlight of the keynote.
Chris Miller says on November 10th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I’m in a speech class now. She makes us use 3×5 note-cards, so I make them. What I usually do is lay them on the podium then stand next to the podium and give my talk, never looking at the cards. I think they’re a waste and I probably won’t use them for the next speech.
I also seem to be the only one that isn’t terrified to be up there. I think it helps me the most to NOT stand behind the podium — that feels too formal for me.
Sven says on January 24th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
In my opinion, a presenter should know enough about his topic not to need notes, but you should carry a notecard with the key topics listed so you don’t forget something you want to say…