Does steve jobs memorize his keynote speches?

[WillMak]

One of the things I find most amazing abotu Jobs is his ability to captivate an audience with his public speaking skills. When he's doing stuff like Mac world is everythign he says just a script or does he just wing it?

[iGary]

That is not really Steve™, it is a Stevebot™.

[clayj]

He's not memorizing a script, per se. But he does have a checklist of items to cover and they rehearse the keynote enough times to make sure that nothing gets missed. This is true for pretty much every Steve/Bill type person who presents out from behind a podium.

There are no cue cards or TelePrompTers being used.

[Lacero]

True. I think he practices more on timing and delivery than the actual content of his presentations, not to say they are not important. It's what he doesn't say that's really intriguing and that's part of the arsenal in his RDF toolkit.

Here's to the Crazy Ones http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=35452 (http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/movies/think-different.mov)

[Applespider]

There are no cue cards or TelePrompTers being used.

There's quite often a piece of paper next to the Mac he's demonstrating on. I assume it has some of the timings or file names just in case.

The Keynote slides are also 'reminders' of what he's saying next. Presentation skills are just that; skills to be learned. You can't give a great presentation with lots of cards, lots of text to read etc. You have to know your product inside-out and just have the slides etc to give you the key points.

[macOSX-tastic]

i had to do a university presentation for my course.....i tried a steve like method, and it worked really well....it wasnt executed perfectly at all, but i did ok, and i had a lot more bulletpoints on screen; but that is the key to a great presentation, and why i got one of the best marks in the class, because i was confident about what i was talking about and didnt bore my audience with reams of text to read. i used keynote aswell:D

i got a B+.

S

[ITASOR]

I find it cool that he knows what's on the next slide before it comes. That takes a little rehearsing, but I think it's part of the job description.

[2nyRiggz]

i always wondered myself but im glad to see a CEO up on his company info.


Bless

[mad jew]

I find it cool that he knows what's on the next slide before it comes. That takes a little rehearsing, but I think it's part of the job description.


I always thought the second display he always has on stage with him showed what was coming up. Whenever I give a presentation, I have a copy of my slides nearby just in case. :)

[ITASOR]

I always thought the second display he always has on stage with him showed what was coming up. Whenever I give a presentation, I have a copy of my slides nearby just in case. :)

Yeah, probably :p.

Or else he has one in the way back, which shows the next slide so he can appear to be looking at the audience, but actually be looking at that.

[mjstew33]

I think he's awesome at keynotes.

He really knows how to use Keynote well.

He said he used it in his Keynote. :D

[Xtremehkr]

I doubt it, Steve is a real leader, I imagine that he is involved with everything that happens to varying degrees, so he is already familiar with what the presentation has to offer.

I imagine he puts a lot of work into the order of presentation, organizing it in a manner which brings consumers onboard by explaining what they are going to be able to do with the new technology.

Apart from a basic structure, I am sure that he ad libs a lot of it.

[greatdevourer]

Not as well as he could do :p "2 to 3 ex" :p

[steve_hill4]

I doubt it, Steve is a real leader, I imagine that he is involved with everything that happens to varying degrees, so he is already familiar with what the presentation has to offer.

I imagine he puts a lot of work into the order of presentation, organizing it in a manner which brings consumers onboard by explaining what they are going to be able to do with the new technology.

Apart from a basic structure, I am sure that he ad libs a lot of it.
He does, but knows what he is supposed to be doing. Obviously the slides act as a visual reminder, (I've always found this to be the case too), but he has a general idea what he is doing and goes with the flow.

I recall in his MacWorld keynote from last year he was demonstrating Spotlight and accidentally got a slideshow running. Firstly he told the audience that he didn't mean to do that and he ould show that off a little later. Then he tried to quit, someone shouted to hit escape, that didn't work and he ad-libbed in the "I think we just found a bug." Not as high profile as the Windows 98 crash, but it shows that while planned, it's not rehearsed down to the exact word. I'm sure he is shown what to do, where to find things and the general gist of what he is talking about, then Steve merely adds his own personality on top of that.