Excerpt:
Mackey's presentation in Berkeley is a wonderful example of a presentation by an intelligent, personable, and passionate leader that easily could have been insanely great but was not. "[Mackey] raced through the slides like a Ph.D. student presenting his dissertation," said the UC Berkeley reporter in the audience. It was not a disaster by any means, based largely on Mackey's sincerity and the courage it took just to show up at all, but it's a shame the presentation itself was not better planned and delivered given the importance of the topic and the profile of the speaker. Frankly, when you're trying to change the world, there is no excuse for being dull.
How could it have been better?
There are so many ways in which John Mackey could improve his presentation. Here are just three:
• It's a story. This topic screams "Story" yet there was no story that I could follow. There were bits and pieces (some of it interesting) and way too much history and data-without-purpose.
• Make it shorter. Cut the presentation part of the evening to 20-25 minutes and spend more time discussing on stage with the host, taking questions from the audience, etc. This is when the evening really got interesting.
• Make it visual. There are no boring topics, but this topic is especially interesting and provocative. There is no reason in the world to make this dull visually or otherwise, but he did. (Although the movie he showed in the middle was shocking and provocative.)
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