At the 1997 Mac World event in Boston, Steve Jobs was invited to present the Apple annual report to its audience.
The 38-minute video opened with a screen preview of the Apple products, sample press releases and the welcome address of Colin Crawford, Mac Publication’s President & CEO . While his speech was read, Mr. Crowford seemed uneasy and his discourse entailed a lot of word crutches, his saving grace came with the animated image of the Apple logo (3:20-3:23) and the video introduction of the next speaker whom he referred to as “the person who needs no further introduction”. True enough; the appearance of Steve Jobs in Macworld’s front cover earned a resounding accolade from the audience until he personally appeared on stage.
Steve Jobs’ presentation started with Apple’s status report. His expression was very relaxed and has a continuous flow of thought. He has full control of the wide screen which featured the topics the he will discuss. His speech established a business plan for Apple starting with the problems facing the company, from the management down to the customer service, its “core assets”, improving software and hardware features and other issues. The manner in which Steve introduced each member of the board was well put together thereby establishing the integrity of each individual. He featured insights from the board members as resource persons, presented new partners, injected humor in each topic, included satellite feeds from Microsoft main man, Bill Gates, thus sustaining the audience interest on each topic. His closing remarks left insights to the audience with a discreet marketing campaign for Apple which is very striking and inviting.
Jobs holding a MacBook Air at Macworld Conference & Expo 2008
Photo Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
In general, this video should be seen by people engaged in public speaking or are into speech-making. It is a very good example of communication because Steve Jobs presented it in a very light, casual, information packed and systematic manner. He was able to discuss and cover all the issues the audience needs to know about Apple. Indeed, this should be included in the top 10 speeches/presentations of Steve Jobs and emulated by all those who engage themselves in public speaking.