French version of PresentationZen book is released

The french version of PZ the Garr Raynold's book, is indeed a good news for french people for 2 reasons : the first reason is that french people including myself are not excellent in English and of course it is always helpful to get the true meaning of what we thought to have understood from the original ( it happens sometimes that this makes a great difference) and the second reason is that PresentationZen is a wonderful book about design and presentation. This book has not only influenced my sense of design and the way i am working now on slide presentations but it gave me some very valuable concepts that continue to help me in my all work and life on a daily basis. Furthermore Garr's blog allowed me to discover and to be connected to many great blogs and to great authors like Seth Godin, Daniel H Pink, Guy Kawasaki, Nancy Duarte...

We really need this book in France and i am wondering whether here, we are suffering from bad slideware more than anywhere else around the world (i hope i am wrong) . And this again for 2 reasons : First, in France, we are very homework oriented and therefore we always need to prove that we have properly made our work and that means we can't afford to let the space empty on the slide in the same way a brillant student can't afford to make white copy. And second,in France, we specially appreciate being regarded as a little bit smarter than the others and that's the reason why we don't hesitate to produce slides that are complex and awfully boring

Why less coding is more ?

As a guy working for a big software company which provides a lot of features for their customers and used to add additional coding for each release i have been thinking for years that the best product was the one with the higher number of features . And i assume that idea is still regarded as belonging to the conventional wisdom.
So in order to overcome competition the companies spend more and more time and money to build big products with many options.
However, i think now that such behavior leads to a dead-end by increasing dramatically both the software price and their implementation complexity. I changed my mind reading the online book "Getting real" from a small company called 37signals and whose team creates simple and focused software. Their philosophy is to build product that do less than the others but that work smarter, allow their customer doing their way and are easier to use.

For 37signal's book less coding is more means :

"Less features

Less options

Less corporate structure

Less meeting and abstractions

Less promises"

Less coding is more because it allows you to be more flexible for quickly changes : you can react and evolve, you can focus on the good ideas and drop the bad ones. You can listen and respond to your customer. You can integrate new technologies now instead of later.
Less coding enables the companies to lower their cost of change. Less coding allows companies to rapidly modify their entire business model: they can change their product, their marketing issues, they can change their priorities and focus, they can make mistakes and fix them. And above all "they can change their minds."

This video with Barry Schwartz, the paradoxe of choice's author is not directly about software but you will find anyway some ideas that are fully applicable to it

The demo trap

This trap happens when everything seems OK with your demo, for instance you are connecting well with the audience and you meet all their requirements and suddenly someone you didn't notice previously asks you to confirm a particular feature of your software.
This question seems secure and insignificant.And then as your are confident and enthusiast you do not hesitate to answer him that indeed your software is able to do what was just asked and you start giving him some additional examples and short narratives in order to prove and confirm this features .
Bad luck ! This question was a trap and that means the hell begins for you because your prospect tells you that it is the perfect feature that they do not want for their company and their kind of organisation

That's the theme of the little demo scene above with these dialogues :

The customer ask quietly : "Xavier could you confirm me the capability of your software to make VISIBLE all the sales opportunities for both the manager and our whole sales team team ?"

"Indeed" Xavier says " this is a great feature that everyone can share in the same time his own opportunities and that of the others

"That's exactly what we do not want for our sales team" the customer replies shaking his head "we can't afford to buy a software that allows such a feature !!!"

So enjoy the demo scene above with the presenter who will fall into the trap ( french dialogues)

My favorite Presentation in TED website

Let's me share with you one of my favorite presentation that i have seen this year, it is not so far a demo presentation but we can learn a lot from this outstanding and inspiring talks :

it is great mainly because the Jill Bolte Taylor's charisma is amazing and a great message is delivered : telling us how she was enable to recover step by step her own brain. She fully explain additionally her strong and meaningful experience about living only with the right brain : without ego and any boundaries between her and the whole universe as she was no longer aware of her body. she experienced then compassion and loves for both human being and earth.
More over, she meets all the ingredients for great : Enthusiasm, creativity, unexpected behavior ( showing a real brain to the audience) , simplicity and meaning.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Welcome to an awesome world of software demos

This blog is about software demo and how i try to make my software wonderful and sometimes a little bit (not too much) looking more wonderful than it is in the real world

However i would like to share with you a lot of software topics like for instance what could be the right approach for information system ? how we can simplify the IT system with less software features and in the same time how we can get successful by reducing the costs, improving the process, leveraging the project implementation and saving time ?

That means the quote 'small is wonderful' or 'less is more' is currently true in our daily real life and it is the same when it comes to IT system : 'less features is more', less features are better for the customer and are better for us as well.