You never forget the first time, do you? The impression lives with you forever. Certainly that's the way it was with me.
It was twenty five years ago that I attended my first Toastmasters meeting. My manager had suggested that I should work on my presentation skills and a good friend was a Toastmaster.
And so at that first meeting I heard about Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). The rules were unbending: when presenting, you should have no more than three points per slide, no more than five words per point. It really made you think carefully about how to communicate effectively and it clearly works because Toastmasters continue to be a successful organisation.
And I remember this especially today because I'm reading through a presentation sent to me by a keen business partner. After the first two introductory slides, no slide has less than 100 words and at least two complex diagrams. And jargon by the bucketload.
It's not just this one organisation that does this. I see it more and more: "presentations" that are more like engineering theses. At least two prominent IT vendors are guilty.
In a world where information overload is a fact of life, why don't we insist that people learn how to present before setting them free on PowerPoint? It seems sometimes that people are writing a thesis using PowerPoint. That's the wrong tool, people. Use Word (or your favourite non-MS word processor).
I think it was Oscar Wilde who wrote "I am sorry this is a long letter. I don't have time to write a short one." When you're preparing presentations you can save a few hours by just throwing everything into that screen show. But you waste ten or twenty times that for your audience. (And if you keep doing this, you'll find your audiences getting sparser.)
So please: let's KISS again.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Wednesday 2 January 2008
Insult and battery
It's probably not politically correct for an employee of Fujitsu Siemens UK to say he quite likes Apple laptops, but I do. I bought my first one while working at another high tech company and quickly came to enjoy MacOS and, frankly, the attractive look and feel of Apple Macs. MacOS is not perfect, but it's better than Windows in my experience. My current home system is a MacBook Pro, the fourth Mac I've bought.
And yet, and yet.
There are more and more niggles as time goes by. Something is wrong with the lid, so that when I shut it the system doesn't suspend unless I tweak the front right part firmly down. From time to time, the WiFi seems to turn off every few seconds for an instant. But not consistently enough that I could take it in for repair and be able to demonstrate the problem.
Most recently, the problem is the battery. It feels really hot with the laptop on my lap, which makes me nervous (tempting as it is to put a link in here, I will not on the basis of NSFW). And the battery life has recently been very short - 30 to 40 minutes. So I thought I'd treat myself to a new battery. I logged on to Apple's shop and looked up batteries. And having done so, I thought again.
In the buyers' review section, there was a huge vote of dissatisfaction. Buyers - many of them Apple fans of many years, were clearly incensed at a poor product. Comments included "Shame you can't give zero stars", "Appalled", "Bad Bad Bad!!", "Rubbish" "Makes you want to cry" and "Ridiculous" - not what you expect from the loyal Apple fan base.
So I held on to my £99. (£99 for a battery!?!)
It seems to me that Apple have become like Jaguar cars were in the 1980s: glamorous but unreliable. In a way that makes me sad: I've never worked for Apple or owned their shares but a little part of me has cheered whenever they've done well and come back from the dead. I like upstarts but increasingly it appears that their quality control is poor.
Although my Fujitsu Siemens laptop may not be quite as pretty as my MacBook, the battery lasts hours. And the system doesn't run hot all the time. I'm looking at it with fresh eyes and renewed respect.
Like a VW Golf, really. Reliably keeps going year after year. That may be boring, but there are times it's good to be bored.
And yet, and yet.
There are more and more niggles as time goes by. Something is wrong with the lid, so that when I shut it the system doesn't suspend unless I tweak the front right part firmly down. From time to time, the WiFi seems to turn off every few seconds for an instant. But not consistently enough that I could take it in for repair and be able to demonstrate the problem.
Most recently, the problem is the battery. It feels really hot with the laptop on my lap, which makes me nervous (tempting as it is to put a link in here, I will not on the basis of NSFW). And the battery life has recently been very short - 30 to 40 minutes. So I thought I'd treat myself to a new battery. I logged on to Apple's shop and looked up batteries. And having done so, I thought again.
In the buyers' review section, there was a huge vote of dissatisfaction. Buyers - many of them Apple fans of many years, were clearly incensed at a poor product. Comments included "Shame you can't give zero stars", "Appalled", "Bad Bad Bad!!", "Rubbish" "Makes you want to cry" and "Ridiculous" - not what you expect from the loyal Apple fan base.
So I held on to my £99. (£99 for a battery!?!)
It seems to me that Apple have become like Jaguar cars were in the 1980s: glamorous but unreliable. In a way that makes me sad: I've never worked for Apple or owned their shares but a little part of me has cheered whenever they've done well and come back from the dead. I like upstarts but increasingly it appears that their quality control is poor.
Although my Fujitsu Siemens laptop may not be quite as pretty as my MacBook, the battery lasts hours. And the system doesn't run hot all the time. I'm looking at it with fresh eyes and renewed respect.
Like a VW Golf, really. Reliably keeps going year after year. That may be boring, but there are times it's good to be bored.
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