First, a disclaimer. Cingular is a wonderfully reliable cell phone provider. Our 4-line family plan is a bargain and I have absolutely no complaints about the service. That said, pity the poor CEO of Cingular, Stan Sigman, who discovered to his cost at the recent MacWorld in San Francisco that Steve Jobs is a hard act to follow.

Within a day of the Jobs keynote, communications blogs exploded with an analysis of the failure of the Cingular CEO to come up to the mark during his time on the podium.

First, blogger Seth Godin posted a scathing report which called attention to the speaker’s failings in both style and content (or soul and substance):

Stan sure could use some help. He’s dressed all wrong. Not buttoned down enough to be a CEO, not casual enough for the Valley. And his jacket fits funny. Sort of like he’s at his son-in-law’s second wedding.

Stan gives his talk from 3 x5 index cards, which he holds awkwardly on stage. And he doesn’t really say anything.

This was picked up by the Dale Carnegie Training Center blog which posted the YouTube video and let us see for ourselves what Sigman does that stands in stark contrast to Jobs:

Sigman enters 4:30 into the clip above.

The Dale Carnegie folks place the blame at the feet of the communications team at Cingular who advised their CEO (the Executive Communications team that is, not the guys who give us dial-tone):

Who advised Stan? Here is where they should have been:

Use a teleprompter or earpiece.

Practice, practice, practice.

Talk to the lawyers again, there must be a better way.

Practice

Don’t say it at all. Give us your heart and enthusiasm then sit down. Leave the rest for the press release.

I hope Stan is surrounding himself with people that can be honest with him. This is another testament on how critical presenting yourself is in business.

Next, Garr Reynolds picked up the story, and drew a telling contrast between the Cingular CEO and Jobs, Google’s CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. A picture gallery shows the contrast:

Reynolds suggests it’s the use of the notecards that scuppered the talk. I disagree. In my stint as Scott McNealy’s speechwriter, I created bullet-point notecards for Scott to use onstage. He was relaxed and confident using them. Indeed, he relished using them as a prop in Tonight Show-style “Top 10 List” gags that the audience loved. He’d toss the notecards aside accompanied by goofy sound-effects:

Some speakers clutch the slide clicker as a security blanket, others grab onto a pen or a pointer as an outlet for nervous tension. Notecards in and of themselves are not the problem, inadequate preparation and coaching in their use is.

Notice, by the way, that we provided Scott pale blue notecards which show up better on camera. The Cingular team gave their man the bright white ones that cause glare.

As Reynolds concludes, we can all learn from Stan Sigman’s mistakes:

My only point in highlighting his short speech was to show what the rest of us must never ever do. Like it or not, our customers, employees, and colleagues judge us in part on our ability to stand and deliver a successful talk. Stan Sigman’s performance was a wonderful textbook example of what not to do. We must find our own voice and our own style, of course, but we must never make the same mistakes made by Mr. Sigman.

Finally, Bert Decker contrasts Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with the content we’ve discussed above. This is a low blow. We’d all come off the worse for comparison with the great orators. However, Bert is right on when he says it is to the world-class speakers we need to look for inspiration.

That, and a good speech coach, can make all the difference. And thinking twice before you follow Steve Jobs onstage.