Two books present useful thoughts on presentations

 

 

Smart design and the power of crosstalk and snark can help persuade and engage.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. Garr Reynolds. New Riders. 252 pages.

I really liked Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, which provided a very smart way of thinking about PowerPoint and other ways that we convey information to persuade, inform and inspire groups and individuals. Unfortunately, we still encounter too many people who didn't get the memo. The presentations and "decks'' are dense, wordy, convoluted and soulless.

Reynolds' understanding of the need to establish an emotion connection between the audience and the subject, and not throw piles of stultifying data and glitzy images at them, was refreshing. But the author — a corporate veteran — has a powerful sense of whimsy and valued creativity in all its manifestations. This new book is a really worthwhile continuation of the Presentation Zen theme.

While just about every biped with a computer these days thinks they're a designer, the smart folks still leave the dangerous stuff to the professionals. Yet Reynolds boldly goes, regardless, and attempts to teach the principles of design to the PowerPoint crowd. This is fairly audacious, but because he's such a knowledgeable guy, deft designer and all-around brilliant person, he actually pulls it off. Of course, being a great presenter helps quite a bit, and he pulls out all the stops in telling and showing just how it's done, with plenty of great examples. Type, white space, images, contrast, humor, metaphor and just about every element of design are at least touched upon or delved into.

Throughout, Reynolds' personality and philosophy shine through, adding an extra layer of goodness to the proceedings.

The question, as always, is whether or not those who need this book — the ones who stand the most to gain from it — will buy it and actually read and follow its instructions.

The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever. Cliff Atkinson. New Riders. 222 pages.

If you remember passing notes in class during boring lectures and lessons, you'll easily understand how audiences armed with laptops, BlackBerries and iPhones now Tweet, post and e-mail back and forth during presentations and events. This poses some extraordinary obstacles, but it also opens up some new opportunities for all involved. Atkinson, who, like Reynolds, wrote an earlier book on PowerPoint, shows how savvy presenters, hosts and participants can use this crosstalk, chatter and snark to extend and expand their own presentations into full-blown participatory multimedia experiences.

There are some painfully hilarious instances of the use and misuse of these channels -- backchannels, as Atkinson calls 'em — along with examples that they either trashed the presentation along with the presenters' credibility and reputations, or turned hostile audiences into engaged and delighted participants.

Some of the material herein is pretty basic, since it's necessary to establish and define terms, conditions and technologies, but once past that, The Backchannel is a very helpful and smart resource — quite entertaining, too!

originally published in The Miami Herald

The Zen of Presentation

More than words: Books tell you how to motivate
Learn how to say what you mean, conceal what you say and stimulate your audience with these three new books.

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Communicating to persuade or motivate is a challenge for many businesspeople. Being literate and intelligent is not enough. Creativity is involved, but it requires the suggestion of images, emotions and other connections in order to achieve the desired effect. Even when the message is solely composed of text, images and other sensual cues are evoked to stimulate and create interest. Here are three recent books that look at ways to arouse emotion and connect the feeling to the action.


Powerlines: Words that Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History. Steve Cone. Bloomberg. 272 pages.

Cone presents an overview of how words are used in speeches, for political purposes, in advertising and the like. It's a nice, freewheeling discussion, sort of a ''Words 102'' course, with lots of examples, anecdotes and back stories. As an advertising executive, he's perfectly positioned to relate ways that combinations of words form catchphrases, tag lines and slogans. And there's lots of backstage stuff, too, with anecdotes about the unsung executives and ''creatives'' responsible for some of the more memorable campaigns.

Though more a survey of the field than a how-to, Powerlines would be a worthy addition to a vocational library or as a reference book for would-be copywriters.


Subliminal Persuasion: Influence & Marketing Secrets They Don't Want You To Know. Dave Lakhani. Wiley. 202 pages.

Lakhani presents basic copywriting principles in the context of ''subliminal persuasion,'' which makes it sound arcane and exotic. Well, maybe, but many of the ideas he offers are substantially less mysterious and forbidden than advertised. And that's fine, since he's applying some of his principles to the packaging and presentation of his text.

He invokes a number of sources to illustrate his thoughts, including a presentation by advertising guru Roy Williams that I've witnessed, where he played Bruce Springsteen's upbeat, anthemic Born In The U.S.A., then went over the lyrics, which are depressing and downbeat. This illustrated the fact that a feeling can be created that may be contradictory to the actual message contained in the text when packaged in a distracting way -- a nice lesson for the current political season.


Presentation Zen. Garr Reynolds. New Riders. 227 pages.

PowerPoint presentations are usually pretty lame. It's strange, because one would think that using a tool like that would enable and unleash creativity. But, no. Presenters usually jam in as many words as possible and accompany them with boring images like logos and charts. What a snooze!

Garr Reynolds feels our pain. An authority on presentations, he's also a corporate veteran, so he's probably suffered through more than his fair share of ponderous show-and-tells. His book is beautifully designed and a pleasure to behold, and he's not afraid to use white space, all text, photos, colors and any combination of the above. As with the best writers, he understands that there must be an emotional connection between the idea and the audience so he shows how it's done. Of course, there's no one right way to achieve this, so he includes ideas and contributions from great minds (and presenters) like Guy Kawasaki, Daniel Pink, Seth Godin and others.

The Zen from the title is apparent throughout the book. Reynolds is a wise and whimsical character who advocates creativity and thought in everything we do, which will improve our presentations, too. His closing words on life, living and learning is the perfect coda to this terrific book, which encompasses much more than its goal and stimulates additional thought and reflection — just like a great presentation should do.

Good book review!

I published a review of Johnny Bunko by Dan Pink a couple of weeks ago in The Miami Herald. The next week, I reviewed Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (and two other books).

I took a look at Garr's site and discovered that he, too, reviewed Pink's book — in his own way. And here it is.

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