CHANNEL THEIR INNER ZEN 103
understand, and act upon the first time they read (or hear) it.
The website has free guides on how to write in plain English as
well as marvelous before-and-after examples, such as the ones in
Table 8.7.^28
Nearly everything you say in any memo, e-mail, or presen-
tation can be edited for conciseness and simplicity. Remember
that simplicity applies not just to the words on the slides but
also to the words that come out of your mouth.
Author and advertising expert Paul Arden says that people go
to a presentation to see you, not to read your words. He offers this
tip: “Instead of giving people the benefit of your wit and wisdom
(words), try painting them a picture. The more strikingly visual
your presentation is, the more people will remember it.”^29
Leonardo da Vinci stated, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophis-
tication.” One of the most celebrated painters in history, he
understood the real power of simplicity, as does Steve Jobs.
When you discover this concept for yourself, your ideas will
become far more persuasive than you could ever imagine.
TABLE 8.6 POSSIBLE VERSUS ACTUAL DESCRIPTIONS IN
JOBS’S PRESENTATIONS
WHAT STEVE COULD HAVE SAID WHAT STEVE ACTUALLY SAID
MacBook Air measures 0.16 inch at its
thinnest point, with a maximum height of
0.76 inch.
“It’s the world’s thinnest
notebook.”Time Capsule is an appliance combining
an 802.11n base station with a server-grade
hard disk that automatically backs up
everything on one or more Macs running
Leopard, the latest release of the Mac OS X
operating system.
“With Time Capsule, plug
it in, click a few buttons,
and voilà—all the Macs in
your house are backed up
automatically.”Mac OS X features memory protection, pre-
emptive multitasking, and symmetric multi-
processing. It includes Apple’s new Quartz
2D graphics engine based on the Internet-
standard portable document format.
“Mac OS X is the most
technically advanced
personal computer
operating system ever.”