After about a year of slide-umentation, it’s nice to finally see a business person use slides the way they were meant to be used. And, no, this wasn’t at my client, it was at this past week’s Apple WWDC. Take it away, Mr. Jobs (all pictures are from Engadget’s liveblogging):
Simple. Unwordy. Clear in meaning. What is he saying in this slide? He’s saying that Apple rests on 3 major product groups: the Mac (PC), Music (iPod/iTunes), and the iPhone. That’s all you need in a presentation, people!!
Bam! We know that the iPhone 3G has several enterprise features: Push Email, Push contacts, Push Calendar, Auto-Discovery, Global address lookup, and Remote Wipe. Notice how we can tell its about the 3G, because there’s a big picture of the 3G that takes up the left half of the slide. Notice how the right slide just has big text, not tiny text to describe what "Push Email" and "Push contacts" mean, or the little technical specifics on everything.
Now, for something "technical" — but, oh look — the slide makes it again very simple to understand without resorting to an insane mind-numbing wordwall or any overly sophisticated diagrams. It’s just, email pops up in server, is then pushed to the push notification service, and then pushed to the iPhone.
I mean, seriously, using words to describe this slide does injustice to the slide.
Frankly, Jobs could’ve done without the horizontal grid-lines, but again, very simple and elegant chart.
Somebody at a typical consulting firm/business would want to put on this slide the dimensions of the iPhone. Jobs knows, however, that all you need to do is show a picture — so the audience understands how thin it is. How many inches doesn’t stick in one’s head. This image, however, does.
As always, Mr. Jobs, well done. Now, can I please have a free iPhone?