Zen and Presentations

Around where I live, the redbud trees are blooming. They are by far my favorite trees. I missed most of their splendor last year because I was in Japan (and missed the cherry blossoms there because I came back home for 2 weeks at their peak). So here's a picture of one.

I came across a great blog site, Presentation Zen. I am working on becoming more active as a public speaker, and this site has some good advice. A particular article that caught my eye compared Bill Gates to Steve Jobs from a presentation perspective. The article talks about the Zen principle of simplicity, or kanso and that "beauty, grace, and visual elegance are achieved by elimination and omission."

The blog post goes on to compare the style of Jobs (visual Zen master) and Gates, who embodies the Microsoft method of presentations that many of us have seen. I'll admit I've even created some like this myself. But next time I put together a presentation, I'll think about simplicity and how to create the most impact with the least amount of stuff in my slides.

On a side note, I recently switched from a Windows machine to a MacBook. I think even the Mac computers have that same Zen approach.