Perspective not prescriptive | Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices...

A new view for presentations | Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) | Garr Reynolds

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	• Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) Garr Reynolds New Riders Press, 2008 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It's About Mindset and Preparation

This book is about getting the correct mindset and preparing for a presentation. It's message is that presentations today suck, and it's because we forgot to take the time to think about it.

This book is not about design techniques, but more about the framework of a good design, and laying down the fundamentals and basics before you work your way through your own techniques.

So in summary, if you need a book to convince yourself (and others!) to make good presentations, this book is a must - but if you're already an expert communicator - this book will be just a fun read, but likely you won't gain anything new.

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Perspective not prescriptive

Based on other reviews I thought I would eitehr love this book or hate. It would either be a great source of insights on presenting or a jargon-laden book that could best be described as "clever." Thankfully, it is the former.

Presentation Zen presents a philosophy on presenting rather than a rule book on what each slide should look like (since that will vary based on what you're presenting). And while I was doubtful up front (as you can tell above), the book is very engaging and, with each chapter, you can viaualize how what he is saying will make for better presentations. Of course the essence of what he is saying is pretty simple - communicate clearly and think of your audience- but he speaks clearly about why some of the things we have done for years which seem like they are doing that really are not. Bullet-riddled slides may convey a lot of information, but they are not communicating well or really thinking about your audience. Just putting a report in landscape mode or in PowerPoint does not make it a presentation.

As the title says this book has "simple ideas on presentation design and delivery" which will be immediately useful to anyone with an open-mind about changing what we have been doing to our audiences until this point.

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A new view for presentations

I think that this book show the way to make better presentations, because Reynolds tell about the creation processes: desing (with pencil and paper) and focus her book in practical aspects.

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Even long-time presenters will get some excellent ideas

I've been doing public speaking for twenty-five years, and teaching before that, and I'd guess that I've created hundreds of Powerpoint presentations. But I still gained some great insight into alternative approaches for using Powerpoint from this book.

If you're an advocate of simplicity, this book will resonate with you. It doesn't tell you exactly what to do, or even give you a process (as Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Bpg-Other) does). However, I found that Presentation Zen was much more thought-provoking, and it affected my presentation style much more than Beyond Bullet Points. It has a generous number of examples taken from real presentations, and these really help. It's approach of "here's a typical prosaic way, and here are some better ways" will make you unsatisfied with traditional, boring Powerpoint slides.

It also delves into using Powerpoint as a supporting tool rather than as the central focus of your presentation, and goes beyond Powerpoint into the finer points of presenting. The last section named "delivery" contains two chapters: "The Art of Being Completely Present" and "Connecting with an Audience". They don't really talk about Powerpoint at all (except for some comments on using a slide clicker), instead concentrating on helping you to focus on what's important - making a presentation a good experience for both you and your audience.

The style and philosophy presented work especially well for presentations in which the primary purpose is persuasion. I don't think presenters of technical material (which is what I do) need to dogmatically adopt all of the techniques in this book. But even a technical presentation needs introductory material on why the presentation is important. The audience must be persuaded of that before they'll even pay attention.

I've bought two of these for colleagues, one an experienced presenter in sales/marketing/promotion, and one just starting out in technical presentation. I believe it will help both.

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Best book on presenting that I've seen or heard of

The best book on creating great presentations I've ever read. If you're going to read one, this is it. Please watch my presentations and web casts (http://silverlight.net) starting mid-June through the next few months and see if it changes what I do; it had better. Truly a great book, very high signal:noise ration, very hgih quality, well worth taking the time to read.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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