Fresh Perspectives

Presentation Zen - Worth Waiting For!

My copy of Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds arrived on Friday.  By Saturday evening, I had finished reading it, and I took notes along the way too.  This book was worth waiting for to say the least.  If enough people read it, the world of business presentations might be revolutionized!

This is much more than a "how to do" book; it is more appropriately a "how to think" book.  The writing is excellent and the supporting visuals are elegant.  The foreword by Guy Kawasaki is unexpected and effective.

This book didn't just change the way I think about presentations, it changed the way I look at our world.  Definitely worth reading, and a great reference tool!

Mac vs. PC

We’ve all seen the ads for Mac vs. PC. These are the most significant marketing works I’ve seen in quite some time.

My first computing experience was punched cards, FORTRAN and COBOL on a Honeywell computer that filled a room, so my golden age reveals itself! PC experience came with a Franklin PC running CP/M. I then escalated to an original DOS PC with WordPerfect and Lotus 123. I’m cut my teeth on a DOS PC, and I have always looked upon Apple computers as toys. I was the last person in my school to upgrade to Windows 95, and a GUI interface wasn’t something I embraced. I’m now of course running Windows XP systems exclusively.

I recently purchased a new laptop running XP, and I spent the greater part of a day installing Windows updates (72 of them), virus protection, spam filtering and all of the other amenities necessary to make a PC operate. Windows Vista isn’t something I am embracing, so this very innovative ad campaign by Apple has garnered my undivided attention and reinforces the fact that simplicity has impact!

At the career-tech school where I’m an administrator, we’re adding some new iMac and Mac Book systems in our Graphic Design training area. These will be the only Mac systems in the entire school and they will co-exist among approximately 200 PC systems. So that we can support the new systems, the Tech administrator and I are in the process of learning the systems. Here are some of my first impressions:

• The Mac Book I’m using is streamlined and elegant.
• The system was functional in 20 minutes. It easily found and configured my home wireless network, and I quickly was accessing the shared files on my PC.
• OS X is built on UNIX, an older multi-user operating system for mini computers. Partly because of its roots, OS X doesn’t share the same security issues as the PC running Windows. It is very stable.
• The operating system tools are intuitive and simple. I was navigating in it within a few minutes.
• A tour of iWork trial software (Keynote and Pages) demonstrated the astounding graphic capabilities of the system. PowerPoint is a Pontiac; Keynote is a Benz!
• I loaded a large spreadsheet from my networked PC into Office 2004 for the Mac without a hitch. I could get accustomed to using the Mac version of Office.

The Mac ads are 100% accurate! Matt May, author and consultant, wrote a book about Toyota called The Elegant Solution. To me, Mac systems exemplify “Elegant Solutions”. Simple usability (OS X) is elegant, and it always beats gizmo (Vista)!