Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery [Paperback]

Presentation Zen is a MUST-READ book for any teacher, presenter, or preacher.

I cannot convey the frustrations I’ve had sitting through countless lectures, workshops, or sermons where the presentation slides have been slowly killing my mind and my soul. Thank God for Garr Reynolds, one of the best evangelists for presentation design and delivery. I love his heart for all things design, presentation, and art related.

I devoured this book in a few hours (it’s quite simple… but not simplistic). Very practical steps on how to prepare, design, deliver, and take the next steps for your development in presentation design and delivery. This book is also (probably) the ONLY book that the foreword was written in SLIDE format (done by Guy Kawasaki).

If you don’t want to get the book, check out Reynolds blog: Phttp://www.presentationzen.com/

For an idea of the presentation design offered by Reynolds, check out the following video (part of the google talks series): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2vtQCESpk

Long before there was PowerPoint, most presentations contained more columns of numbers and bullet points than pictures. PowerPoint seemed designed to capture the essence of those transparencies and make it faster to create them . . . while adding color. Compared to those ugly transparencies, PowerPoint seemed like an improvement.

By comparison, my dentist has always covered his walls with beautiful bleed images of gorgeous places combined with intriguing sayings about life. Those posters are the only uplifting thing about my trips to the dentist's office. He doesn't tell me any entertaining stories.

In presentationzen, Garr Reynolds shares with us that today's audiences like a standard PowerPoint presentation about as much as I like going to the dentist (I doubt if you are surprised by that). His prescription is to turn the typical presentation into a series of stories aided by exhibits that remind me of those dental posters while being very responsive (present . . . in his terminology) to the audience.

The book's main strength, and one that makes it well worth reading and following, is in describing a process that can be used to create a presentation that will be compelling. Even when I see a presentation that I like, I don't learn much from the example because the presenter doesn't share the process behind the result.

The examples almost all showed someone in a black turtle neck, black pants, and black shoes who looked like a Steve Jobs acolyte. As a result, there's an Apple versus Microsoft tone to the book that didn't match any environment where I ever see or give presentations (usually board rooms and senior corporate conference rooms).

Most presentations should be much shorter, should have a lot less material, and should be much easier to grasp. This book will help you if that's the way you want to go. Beware, however, that you don't go over the edge into becoming an "artiste" in your presentations. This book will probably push you a little too far in that direction.

For those who cannot imagine how an image might fit into a presentation, this book will be a great breath of fresh air. To those who want to copy the advice closely, keep your audience in mind. You might try to take them places where they don't want to go.

In my 30-plus years of presentation experience, I find that the story is the key to success. One good story will more than carry the day. You can draw on a chalk board with your fingernails for graphics and a good story will still work just fine. To me, the weakness of this book is that it doesn't pay enough to the story telling aspect of successful presentations.

I recommend Stephen Denning's books on story telling to help you with that aspect of presentations.

I have to say that I was sorely disappointed with this book. It's all about making glossy, simplistic presentation slides. That's it. That might be fine when you are marketing some product using emotional appeals, but when you are trying to convey real ideas with some complexity, it's totally useless. There's an example at the end of the book where a biology teacher uses this 'Zen' approach to teach concepts to university students. Each of his slides comprises of a couple of words and a glossy picture of a molecule - I felt SO sorry for his students! People learn concepts in different ways - some learn through hearing someone explain something, and others learn through seeing something written down, and to assume that everyone will 'get' it by hearing someone ramble on while pointing to these useless slides is just silly.