presentationZen: simple ideas on presentation design and delivery
Garr Reynolds
New Riders
229 pages
ISBN 13: 978-0-321-52565-9
ISBN 10: 0-321-52565-5
US $29.99, Canada $32.99, UK £21.99, Australia ?
Since reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance some 30 years ago, I’ve been attracted to books with Zen in the title. In fact, it was a book called Zen and the Art of the Macintosh (by Michael Green, published in 1987 but now out of print) that convinced me I simply must have a Mac. Get yourself a used copy from Amazon. The book is sheer delight and encapsulates the early magic the Macintosh.
It was little surprise, then, that I impulsively volunteered to review presentationZen, despite having no spare time whatsoever.
It took a long while for the book to reach me in Australia from the publishers (perhaps to allow me to clear a space for it in my cluttered life). I was surprised when a package was delivered to my front door one morning, and when I opened the envelope my first impression was that it must be an art photography book I’d ordered and forgotten. I knew immediately I was going to like this book.
I lingered over the front cover of presentationZen with its deceptively simple asymmetric balance. I lingered over the back cover and the photo of the interestingly handsome author, Garr Reynolds, but I swear that didn’t influence my rating one bit.
Tearing myself away from the photo, I looked inside and flipped through the pages. The layout, appropriately, reflected the Zen concept of space and simplicity. Illustrations and typography underlined the message, with white space and color used to excellent effect throughout. Just enough and no more.
The table of contents was easy to scan, unlike those highly detailed TOCs that take 15 minutes to plough through. The foreword is by Guy Kawasaki: "As far as I know, the first foreword in history presented in a book as a series of PowerPoint slides."
A word of warning: If you have to deliver a presentation in a couple of days’ time, and you want to pick up some quick tips, presentationZen is not the book for you. And if you want a easy step-by-step approach to presentation mastery, this is not the book for you. As Reynolds states, "There is no short and quick road to presentation excellence. Learning to become an exceptional presenter is a journey." If you aspire to becoming a superb presenter, and are prepared to put in the time, then you’ll find presentationZen invaluable.
There are three major sections in the book: Preparation, Design, and Delivery. Throughout, Reynolds focuses on the Zen principles of restraint, simplicity and naturalness. He advocates doing most of your preparation away from the computer, and warns against getting caught up with technique. He stresses the importance of story, and connecting with the audience. He uses Steve Jobs as an example of a presenter-par-excellence.
The Design section gives a truly excellent overview of design principles, with plentiful "before and after" examples to show the reader how to apply these principles. These can be applied in other areas (and life itself), not just to presentations.
Most of us have suffered through the "death by PowerPoint" style of presentation. You know the kind — slide after slide of bullet points overlaid on fussy, clichéd PowerPoint templates, while the presenter droned on, often simply stating what was already on the slide. If the lights were out, you probably, like me, grabbed the opportunity for a nap. At the end you get a printout with exactly what was on the slides, so why try to stay awake?
presentationZen delivers everything you need to become a presenter who stands out from the crowd. If you apply even a few of the principles you will undoubtedly reduce the death-rate by PowerPoint or Keynote.
Is there anything I didn’t like about this book? Just one minor issue: the table of contents does not reflect the rather unusual chapter numbering in the body of the book. I found this strangely disorienting when trying to get an overview.
One final caution: As intimated earlier, I have long been interested in Zen principles, so I found the book fascinating reading. If Zen is not your thing, you may not be quite so attracted. However, it does not depend on an acceptance of Zen and the presentation guidelines are completely practical. The section on design alone is well worth the purchase price.
There’s a nice bonus. With the purchase of the book, you get to choose ten free photographic images from istockphoto.com.
(Be sure to check out Garr Reynolds’ blog at http://www.presentationZen.com.)
MyMac.com rating: 4.5 out of 5
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