Presentation Secrets Of Steve Jobs: How to Be Great in Front of Audience

102 DELIVER THE EXPERIENCE

from extraneous text, so are his words. For example, in October

2008, Apple unveiled a new line of environmentally friendly

MacBook computers. There are two principal ways Jobs could

have described the computers. The column on the left in Table

8.5 is technically accurate but wordy; the text in the column on

the right is what Jobs actually said.^27

Jobs replaces lengthy sentences with descriptions that could fit

in a Twitter post (see Scene 4). Simple sentences are simply easier

to recall. Table 8.6 shows other examples of how Jobs could have

described a new product, compared with what he actually said.

Plain English Campaign

If you need help writing crisp, clear sentences, the Plain English

Campaign can help. Since 1979, this UK-based organization has

been leading the fight to get governments and corporations to

simplify their communications. The site is updated weekly with

examples of the most complex, unintelligible business language

submitted by readers around the world. The organizers define

plain English as writing that the intended audience can read,

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Einstein’s Theory of Simplicity

TABLE 8.5 DESCRIBING THE ENVIRONMENTALLY

FRIENDLY MACBOOK

WHAT STEVE COULD HAVE SAID WHAT STEVE ACTUALLY SAID

The new MacBook family meets the most

stringent Energy Star standards and

contains no brominated flame retardants.

It uses only PVC-free internal cables and

components and features energy-efficient

LED-backlit displays that are mercury free.

“They are the industry’s

greenest notebooks.”