The 10th article on this blog was a speech critique of Steve Jobs delivering the commencement address at Stanford in 2005.

To this day, it’s one of my favorite articles, because Steve Jobs was one of my favorite speakers and that address was one of my favorite speeches.

After publishing the critique, I was often asked whether Steve wrote the address, or whether he had a speechwriter. A common belief at the time was that the speech was so good that it had to be written by a professional speechwriter. So, I emailed him to ask if he was the writer. To my delight, he responded, just 90 minutes later:

Andrew,

I wrote it myself. I am responsible for all of its shortcomings.

Steve

On top of crafting such a wonderful speech, he was modest as well.

Steve Jobs was the embodiment of all that speakers should strive to be:

• His preparation was second to none
• He told stories passionately
• He entertained while educating
• His timing and delivery heightened his impact
• He was a master of speaking fundamentals

We can all learn much from his speaking example. I encourage you to read these articles:

• Speech Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005)
• You Can Learn to Present Like Steve Jobs

In the Words of Public Speaking Bloggers

Since his death a month ago, a tidal wave of tributes to Steve Jobs have sploshed around the Internet. He is praised for his vision. He is praised for his entrepreneurial spirit. He is praised for his presentation skills.

Here’s what some of my fellow public speaking bloggers have written about Steve:

Bert Decker — Steve Jobs the Communicator

Above all, he communicated his brilliant concepts to millions of people, brilliantly.

Nancy Duarte — Steve Jobs: The Great Presenter

So, if Ronald Reagan is The Great Communicator and Richard Feynman is The Great Explainer, might Mr. Jobs be The Great Presenter?

Garr Reynolds — Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

He even raised the bar for presentations. He was a true master. He was a true sensei.

Rick Altman — Steve Jobs’ Untapped Potential

He is arguably the greatest public speaker of his generation…

Kathy Reiffenstein — Remembering the Presentation Brilliance of Steve Jobs

Jobs’ ability to captivate an audience, the elegance of his “one big idea”, his passion, his focus on the visual and his rehearsal ethic are all worthy of imitation.

Jan Schultink — Who is Steve?

Seeing his keynote addresses a few yeas ago made me realize that the world could be a better place if I could help people present just a little bit more like Steve.

Scott Schwertly — Steve Jobs: Legacy of a Presenter

Jobs was a super speaker whose storytelling style created emotional experiences for his audiences and his example is one we should all borrow from.

Terry Gault — In Memory of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was often held up in our workshops as [an] exemplary presenter.

 John Watkis — Steve Jobs: His Words & Works Live On

His work will live on forever. So will his words.

Matt Eventoff — Steve Jobs: Public Speaking, Preparation & Practice

What made Steve Jobs an effective communicator was not innovation or new technology. His public speaking skills had everything to do with fundamentals – an example being one that is crucial yet often ignored – extensive preparation.

Mike Consol — In Memoriam: Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

… he was the greatest presenter in business history.

Similar Articles You May Like... In Memoriam: Randy Pausch (1960 – 2008) You Can Learn to Present Like Steve Jobs Speech Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005)

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Why?

• Does he use cutting-edge software to generate his slides?
• Does he hire the most expensive speech writers?
• Does he perform complex techniques that are beyond the reach of any other speaker?

No. You can easily learn these techniques and present like Steve Jobs.

In this video from bnet.com, communications coach Carmine Gallo provides an insightful synopsis of the methods that Steve Jobs uses to captivate his audience.

Summary of Speaking Tips

• Set the Theme
  • Make your theme clear and consistent
  • Create a headline that sets the direction for your meeting
• Provide the Outline
  • Open and close each section with a clear transition
  • Make is easy for your listeners to follow your story
• Demonstrate Enthusiasm
  • Wow your audience
• Sell an Experience
  • Make numbers and statistics meaningful
  • Analogies help connect the dots for your audience
• Make it Visual
  • Paint a simple picture that doesn’t overwhelm
• Give ‘em a Show
  • Identify your memorable moment and build up to it
  • Give your audience an added bonus to walk away with
• Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse
  • Spend the time to rehearse

More from Carmine Gallo

If you enjoyed this analysis by Carmine Gallo, you may be interested in the Six Minutes review of his book: Fire Them Up! where he analyzes many other great business communicators.

More about Steve Jobs Speaking Style

For further analysis of Steve Jobs’ speaking techniques, check out the speech critique of his Stanford commencement address. He demonstrates his strength in a different speaking style.

Similar Articles You May Like... Speech Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005) Steve Jobs: Greatest Presenter of Our Generation Book Review: Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer Presentation Skills Book Review – slide:ology by Nancy Duarte PowerPoint Book Review – Clear and to The Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations World’s Best Presentation Contest

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

The style and content are very different from his Apple product launch presentations, but no less worthy of study.

Noteworthy elements of this wonderful speech include:

• strong opening;
• simple classical structure;
• the Rule of Three;
• rich figures of speech; and
• a recurring theme of birth/death/rebirth.

My suggestion is to:

1. Watch the video.
2. Read the analysis below.
3. If you like, read the full speech text to gain further insights.
4. Share your thoughts on this presentation. What did you like? What could have been done better?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Strong opening: Praise the audience and show some humility

Jobs opens with a compliment for the audience: “I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.” He follows that by showing humility in admitting that he never graduated college. In just a few sentences, he has made the audience feel very good about themselves, and increased their receptiveness to his message.

Conversational Style

Contrast “Steven Wozniak and I started Apple” with “Woz and I started Apple.”

• The former is formal, and invokes an image of two entrepreneurs who founded Apple.
• The latter is conversational, and invokes an image of two close friends. Jobs chooses a conversational style, and this is a wise choice. His audience is composed of college graduates for whom graduation often means diverging paths from their close friends.

Simple structure and sentences

Jobs adopts a simple and traditional structure. Opening >> Three stories >> Conclusion. He guides the audience through the 14.5 minutes with simple sentences.

• “Today I want to tell you three stories.“
• “The first story is about connecting the dots.“
• “My second story is about love and loss.“
• “My third story is about death.“

Pauses and Timing

Jobs executes effective pauses before and particularly after key points to allow the audience time to digest his points.

• For example, he concludes his first story with an apparent reference to Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken: “even when it leads you off the well-worn path… and that will make all the difference.” This is followed by a full six seconds of silence. (5:16 – 5:22)

This speech is littered with humour, but I felt the comedic delivery was a bit lacking. Perhaps this was intentional – was his goal to imitate an academic orator? Regardless, the timing was off on several punch lines.

• For example, consider his delivery of “I didn’t even know what a pancreas was.” (10:07) The line is delivered with only a hint of emphasis and barely any pausing before or after. I would have liked more. This is a particularly tense moment in the speech, and the audience would benefit from stress-relieving laughter.
• A minute and a half later, he does a better job of injecting humour in the midst of a serious point: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” (11:40) The timing is better here.

Rule of Three

Jobs structures his speech around three main points, and he applies the Rule of Three in many sentences and paragraphs.

• “I learned [1] about serif and san serif typefaces, [2] about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, [3] about what makes great typography great.” (3:39)
• “It was [1] beautiful, [2] historical, [3] artistically subtle…” (3:47)
• “... [1] started a company named NeXT, [2] another company named Pixar, [3] and fell in love…” (7:16) Jobs follows this up with three sentences which demonstrate how each of those turned out great.
• “[1] all external expectations, [2] all pride, [3] all fear” (9:33)
• “[1] It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. [2] It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. [3] It means to say your goodbyes.” (10:28).
• “… [1] don’t waste it living someone else’s life. [2] Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. [3] Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” (12:18)

Several of those (marked in bold) are additionally examples of anaphora – repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences.

Figures of Speech Abound

Jobs employs numerous figures of speech in his remarks.

• An antithesis (or antitheton) is a figure of speech using the juxtaposition of contrasting words, often in a parallel structure. Jobs uses several well-crafted examples:
  • “If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in…” (4:34)
  • “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” (4:40)
  • “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again…” (7:05) Note also the alliteration of “being a beginner.”
  • “…Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.” (11:55)
• Parallelism (and another example of anaphora): “… that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.” (1:38)
• Anadiplosis (repeating a phrase from the end of one sentence at the beginning of the next): “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” (8:15) This example is effective, but rather loose due to the repetition of “the only way to.”
• Assonance (repetition of vowel sounds): “And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” (9:18)
• Repetition. In addition to the many examples highlighted previously, Jobs concludes his speech by repeating “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” three times. Repetition adds strength to key arguments, especially in a conclusion.

Recurring Commencement Themes: Birth, Death, and Rebirth

In a literal sense, Jobs talks about his birth in his first story, and about confronting death in his third story. However, this speech contains numerous other metaphorical references to these “circle of life” concepts:

• In addition to his physical birth, he relates how the original couple decided they wanted a girl (a symbolic “death” since his life with them was “snuffed out” due to gender). He then tells about how he experienced “rebirth” with his parents.
• His college career had a short “life.” The “death” of his formal academic career made way for the “birth” of his informal learning process.
• His relationship to Apple (in his 20′s) was “born”, grew, and then “died.” Later, when NeXT was purchased by Apple, his career at Apple is reborn.
• He uses the word “renaissance” (a rebirth or revival) to describe the current state of Apple.
• He receives the cancer diagnosis (a “death sentence”), but later is saved by an operation (a rebirth).
• The Whole Earth Catalog. Stewart Brand “brought it to life“, and “then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.”

Interspersed with these stories, Jobs repeatedly ties it back to his audience. This is particularly clear in the conclusion when he relates these metaphors to his college audience one last time with “as you graduate to begin anew.”

Your Thoughts?

Did you enjoy this speech? What did you like from a public speaking perspective? How could this presentation be enhanced?

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.