In my quest to determine five characteristics of what makes
it a great speech I listened to one of the masters of presenting and speaking,
Steve Jobs. Specifically I watched his
commencement address at Stanford University, delivered on 12 June 2005. I have
always been mesmerized by his keynote speeches over the years. How he makes simplicity sound so relevant and
desirable. I also figured he represents technology, which is paramount in the
basis of these blogs.
The five characteristics that I devised from this speech
that make it a great one are:
1. Effective - Jobs
takes the audience on a journey through three stories of his life. From his
upbringing and pre-Apple years, to the Apple years and beyond, and finally a
lesson in mortality.
2. Realistic - He personalizes
the content of his speech with his own life events and lessons. Keeping it on
the level of the creation process, and not the business process.
3. Creative - At the
end of the speech, Jobs quotes a catch phrase from a 1970’s publication that is
relevant to his philosophy on life and the way he lived it. "Stay hungry, stay foolish."
4. Dynamic - He was
very candid in talking about his cancer, and how it effected his train of
thought and decisions.
5. Achievements - At
the end he explains how everything that happened in his life, even the
seemingly bad things, lead to bigger and better things. He ties it all together
at the end, having given the audience a lot to contemplate for their own lives from his own example.
While this speech has become even more famous since his
passing, it sends a profound message of following one’s dreams and how doing something
you love is more successful that doing something for money or fame.
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