asymco

I join forces with Pixxa, makers of Perspective, to present a workshop on the future of presentation.

After giving dozens of talks in the last year using an iPad with Perspective I’ve learned a few things. Having also spent years using Powerpoint to try to do the same thing, I’ve experienced first hand how slideware has gotten in the way of great storytelling.

So we teamed up to understand how stories come alive using data and drew inspiration from Aristotle, Welles, Tufte and Rosling to build a new theory of presentation.

We believe that we have summoned up enough cohesion in the theory to put it forward to an audience and tell the story of storytelling; practicing what we preach, so to speak.

Here are some of the questions we are putting forward:

• How and why are presentations different from one-on-one interactions?
• Can mobile technology help tell stories better than the Powerpoint metaphors?
• Is motion and interaction effective, and if so how can it be choreographed and directed?
• Does “camera position” affect the focal point of a story? In other words, should the presenter think of the camera as a character in the story?
• Can presentations be built more quickly and can the presenter obtain confidence without rehearsal?
• What are some of the constraints of venue and legacy AV equipment that perpetuate ancient dogma? How can the presenter eliminate or mitigate these constraints?

At a minimum, the workshop is designed to recruit and equip a new cadre (no more than 50) with a new algorithm of presentation built on rhetorical, theatrical and cinematic foundations.

We call the workshop Airshow. June 9th, 10am to 4pm, the day before WWDC, in San Francisco. Sign up here.

“So paradoxically, the opinion of those who are highly paid should be treated with suspicion while the opinion of those subject to peer review should be treated with respect. It brings to mind the difference between highly paid fortune tellers and pundits whose methods are obscure vs. poorly paid graduate students whose methods are open to all. Whose opinion is worth more?”

To read more see Horace Dediu on the bad habits of Apple analysts and why Tim Cook shouldn’t be fired – The Next Web

To anyone who has visited the current “campus”, it’s obvious that Apple has outgrown it some time ago. It’s also obvious given the increase in headcount and operational expenses over time as can be seen below:

(I added Q1 2013 estimate based on company guidance.)

One can understand why, from a practical point of view, they want to consolidate what amounts to at least twice as many people back into one place.

But there is also a more subtle reason and it has to do to a fundamental distinction: