Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) | 
 enlarge | Author: Garr Reynolds
Publisher: New Riders Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  59 reviews
Sales Rank: 106
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0321525655
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.58
EAN: 9780321525659
ASIN: 0321525655
Publication Date: January 4, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Book Description
FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net -- presentationzen.com -- shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today's world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
Great book and Super wisdom June 27, 2008
Garr Reynolds is now an icon for all the presenters (who seriously care about their presentations). Several of the things he talked about is applicable in presentations created for informational purposes. This can be marketing and advertisement, personal branding, book review or anything. However, when it comes to technical presentations, it becomes a different story.
Though this book does not talk about techniques in this area, I believe these can be evolved from the principles presented in the presentation zen. I am curious if Reynolds has started researching about technical presentations and how persentation zen can be extended to address the boredom and save the world.
Overall, a wonderful buy! Remember that you also get some stock images for free with the purchase of this book.
Saranyan
http://saranyan.wordpress.com
Follow a new path June 20, 2008
In this beautifully designed and well written manifesto, Garr Reynolds illustrates how your presentations can engage and even inspire audiences, with just a little more effort and imagination in the preparation and design stages.
Most presentations we see are lists of bullet points. They are entirely 'left brain.' The best presentations, Reynolds says, use 'whole mind' aptitudes and talents. During preparation, he advises, get away from your computer. Use paper and pen to sketch out rough ideas in the early stages.
Remember that design is not decoration. Design is about making conscious decisions about inclusion and exclusion. Simplicity is powerful. Simplicity 'comes from an intelligent desire for clarity that gets to the essence of an issue, something which is not easy to do.'
Make your audience feel something. Example: You're explaining the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Do you use bullet points, data, and talking points? Or do you show pictures of the wreckage and flooding and human suffering?
Best book on presenting that I've seen or heard of June 17, 2008
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.
Even long-time presenters will get some excellent ideas June 16, 2008
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.
 Perspective not prescriptive June 9, 2008
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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