The "Lessig Method" of Presentation

The "Lessig method" of presentation is not an official method per se, but many people who know about the work of Stanford law professor, Lawrence Lessig, have been inspired by his presentation style and informally refer to his approach as something unique indeed.

Those who have seen Lessig present have been talking about his approach for a while. David Hornik at VentureBlog wrote a post entitled Putting the "Power" in PowerPoint over two years ago. In this post he heaps praise on the presentation style of Lessig. Hornik says Lessig's presentations "are a fantastic combination of content, art and brand..."

James MacLennan may have been the first to put a label on Lessig's presentation style, calling it the "Lessig Method" which he likens to the Takahashi Method in Japan because Lessig's slides often contain just a single word, short quote, or a photo. The Takahashi Method and Professor Lessig's approach do have similarities, though Lessig uses photos and other graphics, albeit sparingly. MacLennan does a good job of reviewing recent posts in the blogosphere concerning presentations and slideware.

In one of Lessig's presentations, you can see his slides and hear his narration along with them in the video. Unfortunately you can not see the presenter himself at the same time. Still, judging from the live recording of the presentation, we can get a pretty good idea of the smooth way Lessig synchronized his visuals with his speaking, ie, the story he was telling about his ideas on "free culture." Here is the video.

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

It's not the size of your deck that counts. I guarantee you there is no presentation book on the market that would recommend you use a few hundred slides, some visible for 1-2 seconds. That's crazy talk, right? Yet, it works in this particular case for this particular audience and the particular allotted time. This is why I never recommend a specific number of slides, or even that a presenter use slideware at all. It depends.