Do keynotes matter?
I love the morning metro rides. I see many people with headphones on, listening to music or watching their favourite shows on their cellphone. I enjoy binge watching keynote videos of people in the industry that I admire the most enough to get educated and inspired to take on the day.
YouTube is a great resource for such popular keynote videos where one can find presentations of some of the best speakers in the world like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Jim Carrey, Ken Robinson, Tom Hanks and others. It helps me change the way I think about a topic or a problem or life in general and depending on the video, I dwell on the key moments, catch phrases and memorable stories.
When we think of keynotes, what comes to mind is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was famous for his Stevenotes and even today, some of his keynotes like the Stanford Commencement Address attracts thousands of views on YouTube.
I often wonder why keynotes are important for corporates and industry conferences.
As per Wikipedia, the keynote address or keynote speech is delivered at political or industrial conventions and at academic conferences to set the underlying tone and summarize the core message or most important revelation of the event.
Keynote speakers have the responsibility to set the overall tone and context for the event. These speakers are experts in their field and well known by their past achievements.
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems whom I admire, was known for his one-liners in his speeches like this famous one, “In a world without fences, who needs Gates?”. His speeches were both inspirational and entertaining at the same time.
Great presenters like Steve or Scott have learnt over time what engages their audience. Why should the audience care to spend 30 minutes of their life on a speech if the content is not relevant to them or the sentiments are not appealing or they just don’t like the presenter.
Most tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, HPE, Samsung and others use tech keynote as a platform to launch new products. This adds complexity to the keynote as the presenter has to switch gears from a high level theme oriented message down to product features. Steve Jobs was famous for self-driving the demos and product presentations passionately in his own unique ways.
I feel strongly that keynotes still matter and the impact of a powerful keynote goes beyond convention centres to the online world. Here is a recent Apple keynote that attracted millions of viewers.
