The Art of Presentation: Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, & Tom Peters

Presentation Zen has a great post that contrasts the presentation styles of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Tom Peters.  Seth is a marketer.  Guy is a venture capitalist who started at Apple Computer.  It would be an understatement to say that Tom Peters is a management consultant.  All are authors and use public speaking in their work.

It is interesting to see the different styles, ranging from Peters “owning” the room to Kawasaki’s casual sitting-on-the-desk-while-I-talk style.  It reminded me, as someone who desires to improve his public speaking skills, that different styles of public speaking abound and work for many different people.

"If you watch the clips from the links below you'll notice that there is nothing traditional or conventional in their approaches to public speaking. Their respective styles are not exactly the kind of public speaking you'd see at your local Toastmasters meeting (an organization I highly respect and recommend, by the way). Still, it works for them. All three use slides in their talks; Guy no more than ten, Tom more than one hundred, Seth somewhere in between. The number of slides doesn't matter. What matters is that the visuals have an important role, but a supportive role. A complementary role."

—Presentation Zen

An additional post features Guy Kawasaki in an on-stage interview with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. 

There is much to learn for those of us who want to improve our public speaking abilities.  there is also much to learn regarding entrepreneurship from the Kawasaki/Omidyar interview such as:

• On rules to build your business by
• How to staff the right way
• Finding the source for growth/buzz
• On having a core set of values
• On acquiring the right venture capital partners
• On making mistakes
• On staying motivated after the IPO
• On attracting and retaining talent
• The downsides of going public
• Managing growth
• How to stay motivated during maturity
• On giving back to the community

The posts include links to the videos that show the presenters in action.  Consider them a mini-workshop in entrepreneurship and public speaking.  Watch and learn!

(Partly via BlogWrite for CEOs)