Breaking the Rules – With Style

So much for all my pious advice about what makes a good presentation.

If you’re a technophile, you may have already seen the Identity 2.0 presentation by Dick Hardt. If you haven’t, click here (you'll only need to watch a few minutes to "get it," but I bet you'll watch most of it).

Hardt’s presentation breaks so many of the “rules” I’ve preached about here.
He reads his slides.
He uses a glaring white background.
It’s long.
He uses distracting text animations.
And so on.

But the presentation is pretty damned cool. Why? How?

Here’s my take:

1. He knows his audience well – they are tech experts. This allows him to present at a breathtaking pace without slowing down to explain some concepts that might confuse you and me. He doesn’t care about you and me -- we’re accidental audience members.

2. It’s funny. Part of this is his personality, and part of this is the presentation he created. But he did a great job of mixing up instruction, opinion and humor.

3. It is INCREDIBLY rehearsed and choreographed. I can’t imagine the number of hours he spent making then scripting then rehearsing this thing, but it is as smoothly presented as it is chaotic.

4. It’s simple. Despite its length and technical complexity, each image (screen) is painfully simple, as is his narration. He never tries to prove his brilliance by demonstrating complexity. He proves his brilliance by demonstrating simplicity.

5. He uses images well. The same images are used several times to “call back” points he made earlier.

6. Maybe most importantly, it’s different. It’s more like performance art (Spalding Gray, maybe?) than a presentation. You’ve never seen something like this at the office. And you’ll remember it.

So I forgive him for breaking all my rules.