Watch the speech briefing of Masayoshi Son, Chairman of the Software Banking Group: pictures and texts to capture the audience’s attention
For the majority of office workers or friends who want to start a business, learning how to create and deliver presentations is an important skill (opens in a new tab), and it is also a great tool for effective communication and conveying opinions.
There are countless books on presentations and speeches, whether they teach production techniques, appearance and conversation, or typhoon performance. Recently, I noticed that a publishing house has introduced “[Son Masayoshi’s once-OK internal presentation technique]” (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010752989?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recom (opens in a new tab) mend&utm_campaign=ap-201707)”, “External briefing techniques of Masayoshi Son’s briefing master (opens in a new tab)》etc.Book set (opens in a new tab), and I also saw these two books recommended (opens in a new tab) by some teachers who specialize in teaching presentation skills.
I think watching more speech videos of entrepreneurs or celebrities will certainly improve your presentation skills, so if you have time, I encourage you to watch more TED videos, or reminisce about the past style of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple.
Son’s vision for the Internet of Things
Just two days ago, the Software Banking Group held the SoftBank World 2017 (opens in a new tab) (SoftBank World Conference), you can see SoftBank Group Chairman and President [Masayoshi Son] from the official website (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E (opens in a new tab) 5%AD%AB%E6%AD%A3%E7%BE%A9) gave a speech titled “A New World Under the Guide of the Information Revolution (opens in a new tab)”.
In the future, people may say: “Those who rule the chips will rule the entire world” and “Those who rule the data will rule the entire world.”
Last year, SoftBank Group spent US$32 billion to acquire British chip design company ARM and also established the SoftBank Vision Fund with a scale of 10 trillion yen. Chairman Masayoshi Son’s attempt to lock in the Internet of Things (opens in a new tab) is self-evident. At the SoftBank World Conference held on July 20, he revealed for the first time the outline of the Internet of Things business in his mind in 30 years:
“In 30 years, the Internet of Things will connect every corner of the world, robots will also enter our daily lives, and artificial intelligence will surpass the scope of human intelligence and play a more critical role. By that time, what interesting things will happen in this world? What I am sure is that the average life span of human beings will be more than 100 years old, and humans and robots will coexist… While I watch companies effectively use technologies such as the Internet of Things, robots, and artificial intelligence to work, I also deeply feel that a new world is coming.”
Learn communication skills from briefing design
In “Son Masayoshi’s once-okay internal presentation skills (opens in a new tab)”, “[Son Masayoshi’s external presentation techniques by the master of briefings]” (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010752994?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-201707 (opens in a new tab))” In these two books, the author mentioned a lot of his experience in helping the software banking group create presentations, which is indeed worthy of reference. However, since we have the opportunity to witness Chairman Masayoshi Son’s speech to the outside world, let us take a look at what aspects of his briefing are worth learning and emulating?
Presentation style with pictures and texts
As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Chairman Son’s briefing also uses pictures as the main character, coupled with text descriptions. Although there are not many words, it has a “finishing point” effect.
Furthermore, Chairman Masayoshi Son is also good at using charts and statistics to explain facts. As we all know, Chairman Masayoshi Son has a very unique investment vision, which can be seen from the software bank’s investment report card over the years above.
Take the most talked-about investment in Alibaba as an example. Back in 2000, Alibaba was just a small e-commerce company in Hangzhou, China. Chairman Masayoshi Son “recognized heroes with a keen eye” and saw Jack Ma’s extraordinary talent, so he decided to invest US$20 million. Fourteen years later, when Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the market value of SoftBank’s shares had reached an enviable US$58 billion.
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Let’s look at Chairman Son’s briefing again. Even when explaining a complex historical event like British Industrial Revolution (opens in a new tab), it can be simplified with clear color blocks or diagrams so that the public can understand the ideas or views he wants to convey.
In addition, Chairman Sun used the concept of timeline in the briefing and explained it in the form of chronological evolution, which can indeed achieve good results.
The core of a briefing is to persuade the audience
From these screenshots of the briefings, it is not difficult to find that the style of Chairman Son’s briefings is very unified. They are all done in a combination of pictures and text, and there is no overly complicated design. Just like “Technology on Stage (opens in a new tab)” author Wang Yongfu mentioned, “Presentations are not used to convey information, but to persuade the audience!”, “The better the slides, the less time it takes to understand.”
In his two-and-a-half-hour speech, Chairman Masayoshi Son outlined his vision for the future and let the public feel this busy entrepreneur’s enthusiasm for embracing new technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. The billionaire said that SoftBank Group and its partners will be actively involved in every important stage of development, and these words also make me full of expectations.
★ Photo Credit: SoftBank World 2017 (opens in a new tab)
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Vista Cheng speaks and runs workshops on AI workflows, writing and content systems for companies, schools and public agencies.
