Doing “art”, or at least trying to, inspired me again.
I was able to feel parts of my brain, of my soul, again.
It’s like being a passionate motorbiker, and the moment when you ride a motorbike again after years of silence. Same thing.
(Oh, by the way: did you know about my Evil Plan for 2011? It involves motorbikes. “Evil Plan” is inspired by a book by Hugh McLeod, here’s my review).
I don’t define myself as an “artist”, but for sure I have a great passion for art and creativity, and I cannot express it that much lately.

I decided to immediately apply these new stimulus to my job, being a Technology Evangelist for Amazon.com, which implies giving a lot of PowerPoint presentations. I think that most of us focus TOO MUCH on PowerPoint, and too little on the effectiveness of our presentation.
Also, most of our presentations are bullet points. They are supposed to be hand-outs, but they’re instead using during live presentations. That doesn’t bring what the audience wants.
Yes, in the year 2011, still most presentations can be improved, by focusing more on the message, rather than on PowerPoint.

I consider myself better than the average, simply because I prepare and deliver presentations almost on a daily basis (I’m not at almost 300 presentations in the last three years), not because I have a better brain or I’m a genius. This means that with a little effort, anyone can improve any presentation.

I still think that there’s too much focus on PowerPoint. What to do?
I decided to draw some new slides, by hand (with pencil and pen).
Strange, right?

These are the results (click the image to see it bigger):

The above, Cloud Slide #1, simply says “Cloud Computing”, and it’s supposed to be used when you introduce the concept of Cloud Computing to the audience. No extra text here, just the “title”. If you want to know more about it, see what Wikipedia says about Cloud Computing.

The one above is the Cloud Slide #2.
Amazon Web Services (which is the Cloud Computing platform I talk about, most of the times) is a set of building blocks: Storage, or Amazon S3; Computing, or Amazon EC2; etcetera. Amazon Web Services, or AWS, allows to use a combination of these building blocks, based on your specific needs.
There are also tools that give you control on how the overall system behaves, such as Cloud Formation.
This slide shows these “components”, or services, in the form of cubes with a little “dent” on the side, which represents their ability to be mixed together. It’s an idea, of course, and I’m sure that it can be improved.

Third, and last, some very “ugly” sketches for simple slides (on the upper part, you can see some nice drawings that I was doing during the class).

The one with the clock tries to explain how Amazon EC2 is billed: by the hour.
Every hour, you pay an amount based on the cost of the Virtual Server you are running, times the number of Virtual Servers: Pay as you go, pay only for what you use. The others are less clear, just simple sketches that I was playing with.

What do you think? Comments?
Would you like to see a presentation done this way, instead of the usual PowerPoint and bullet points?

If so, you have an opportunity to thank me, by voting it here. It takes only 15 seconds. Thanks A LOT, and sorry for the latest “spammy” posts. I promise I’ll stop… For a while :)

If you’re interested in working for Amazon.com in Asia (in most cases, based in the beautiful city of Singapore), check out the open positions we have: Amazon Web Services, Singapore and Asia Pacific.
As you can see, there are many: some technical ones, such as Solutions Architects or Data Center experts, or some sales-related ones, such as Regional Sales Manager, Account Manager, or ISV/SI Sales Manager. Most of them are related to a specific market in Asia, being India, Australia, China, Korea, Singapore, or other ASEAN Countries.

If you find a job opening that fits your profile, you can either:
1) Apply directly for the job; OR
2) Contact me, and we can briefly discuss it (simone at amazon dot com)

Please remember that I cannot discuss internal details, e.g. how the selection process works, and such. However, I can take a look at your profile, and help you determine if you are a good fit for the job.
You might also want to take a look at these blog posts:
How I got hired by Amazon.com;
The official Amazon Web Services blog;
This nice presentation: Introduction to Cloud Computing and Amazon Web Services, plus demo (remember to download the PPT to read the notes); also, if you like it, please share it on Facebook and Twitter, I’d appreciate that :)

This also means that I’ve seen THOUSANDS of other people give talks and keynotes and such, in front of many diverse audiences.

People listening to these talks are usually BORED, to say the least. The reason is simple: most presenters don’t work hard enough to make their presentations interesting. Even better: they don’t make their presentations FUNNY.
This might sound strange to you, but even the most professional and serious speaker, in the most serious and professional environment, with the most professional and serious audience, should try to be funny, in a way that doesn’t clash with his/her message or goal.

I want to share with you some thoughts about “being funny”. Or, about humour, which I think it’s the “salt” of a great conference talk. And also the “salt” of much more.

First:
Take a look at what Wikipedia says about Humour.
In short, we cannot scientifically define how Humour works; in fact, there are many Theories of Humour.
However, there seems to be some specific methods of creating humour, or being funny: hyperbole, metaphor, farce, reframing, timing.
There is also a discipline, called Gelotology, which studies the effect of laughter in the human body.

If you were a native italian speaker, you could laugh to death at Gigi Proietti’s many gags, but if you try to reproduce them with friends, they would be terrible and boring. There is, in my opinion, something not yet clear about humour, or why some people are so good at making jokes, and others aren’t.

Second:
Save 20 minutes of your time, and watch this wonderful, inspiring, and… FUNNY, presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, at TED 2007.
Ken is funny, multiple times, in a surprisingly natural way.
I admire this person mostly for his ability to be funny; and of course, because the topic he’s covering is of uttermost importance: education.

He’s also great in mixing funny moments and one-liners, with very serious statements, keeping the audience always with him.
If I had the fortune to attend his talk in 2007, I would have thought that he invented time travel, because these 20 minutes would lapse in a second for me.
Look, for example at 3:45, when he tells the story of a little girl and how she “sees” God. That’s fantastic.
And then, much more serious talk, when he describes what he thinks about the Education system at 11:20.

Third:
In my experience, I can be funny at least 2-3 times during a 30 minutes talk, and that helps a lot in getting people’s attention, and appreciation.
I don’t exactly know how and why.
I usually avoid the usual one-liners for speakers, such as these ones, although a couple of them are really funny.

I also think that being entertaining and funny is a form of RESPECT for the audience. These people are sitting there, all day, in a conference hall, while they could be enjoying a walk outside… You have to give them something, besides your boring Powerpoints.
As Seth Godin says “A presentation is not an obligation. It’s a privilege.”

Last, but not least:
You might want to take a look at these posts, related to speaking and presenting in public, but with no specific reference to humour:
Presenting in public
Fredrik Härén: being a great speaker
Sir Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

Can you suggest any resource to learn more about how humour works?
Can you share your own experience?

Today, on this blog, I’d like to share something with you.
First, this not-so-recent letter to a Technology Evangelist, in case you’re interested in becoming one.

Second, let me talk about presenting in public.

There are many, many books, and trainers, and material on this topic.
One of my favourite authors is Garr Reynolds, and I wrote a few lines about his Presentation Zen book a while ago.
I personally met Garr in Seattle, and I’ve been a fan of him ever since.
I like his humility, him passion, and his preparation. He’s also fortunate that he can talk about anything he wants, without the need to check your corporate PR guidelines, or your corporate template design (yes, this is something that I have to deal with, sometimes).

If you are NOT a professional presenter, but just someone that wants to present decently, a good start would be to avoid the most common mistakes… Or, put in other words, avoid the so-called Death by Powerpoint, see below.

My personal view is that the tool itself, Powerpoint in most cases, is overrated. Most people tend to focus on the presentation itself, without wondering what kind of message will be sent out. And this is true if you present in front of your colleagues, or in front of an anonymous audience.

In fact, I love this other book by Garr, The Naked Presenter. The tag lines says it all: delivering powerful presentations with or without slides.

If I find some time, I’ll talk more about my ideas on this blog, in the coming weeks.
I am tempted to start working on a book or something similar, but in that case I want to make sure that it’s a unique work, not the same usual boring stuff on how to design slides and such, that we’ve seen too much over and over and over again.

Well, you have some food for thought.
Let me know your impressions, comments, suggestions. All the best.

This is Fredrik’s advice:
1) Repeat yourself: do few speeches, and do them often, so you get great at them.
2) Don’t offer training, it’s better to be a speaker full time.
3) Don’t do a lot of (different) speeches, specialize.
4) Don’t sell yourself, have someone else sell you, or have word-of-mouth be your main way to obtain speaking engagements.
5) Do not (always) charge: sometimes, do free talks, but beware: work for free, but don’t look cheap.
6) Do not “work”, try to have fun as much as you can.
7) Don’t speak. Talk about what you love.

A nice quote from him: “A brand is for a speaker what a band is for a singer.”. Build your brand, from graphics to fonts to everything else.
Great advice. Now I’m mumbling, trying to think how to apply this to the corporate world I’m part of.

Let me share with you this video of Fredrik: