I had originally planned on writing this post about Social Media, but then on Friday my Dad handed me a copy of Presentation Zen and said "I need this back next week." Well I spent all weekend reading a was hit with a great realization: Garr Reynolds is right! Our presentations are out-of-sync with our reality and desperately need to be overhauled. While I will try to highlight a few key points from Presentation Zen, I highly recommend buying it (for $30 on Amazon) or at the very least visit Garr's blog at www.presentationzen.com.
The core message of this book is easy, presentations need to be simply, engaging, and beautifully creative. In a word, they need to be zen. As humans, the majority of use find it very difficult, if not impossible to follow what a person is saying while reading a mass of information, so clutter on the screen detracts from the effectiveness of the presentation. Many of use learned the "matrix approach" to creating presentation slides, 7 lines (or bullet points) with 7 words each. Presentation Zen challenges this, demonstrating that bullet points should either be limited or better yet not used at all and text should be used in minimal quantities (marketing guru Seth Godin advocates 6 words a slide). The reason? Slides should enhance the Speaker, not detract from him or her. Use the slides the help create the story around the core message by displaying images reinforcing the point. Many people, including myself, have an initial reaction of "but I hand out my slides, they need to contain the information!" Reynolds chides us for this, saying the slides should have very little meaning when separated from the presenter. Instead of cramming information into the slides, a detailed handout should be created and distributed after the presentation (NEVER use the slides as a handout again!).
Another key that Presentation Zen focuses on is preparation, not just rehearsing the presentation, but preparing before the presentation is even created. For this, Garr suggests "going analog," that's right, turn off the computer and create an outline or storyboard with a pen and paper. This allows you to craft the story the way you want it to be heard. The old approach of putting down title headings on a slide and then filling in the information does not create a story or engage the audience, it's simply boring. Without preparation, we tend to error on providing too much information, to show that we've really done our homework, but most of that information is non-essential clutter leading to a sub-par presentation. To deliver a great presentation, preparation is key.
Finally, when designing your slides, remember the notion of simplicity. Removing the non-essential items (yes, even the 3D element of the graph) increases the signal vs. noise ratio and makes it exponentially easier to connect with the audience. Presentation Zen suggests simplicity, naturalness, and elegance based design principles like contrast, repetition, alignment, empty space, and proximity. For great examples check out the presentations at TED.
Seriously think about how you give your presentations and what your audience is getting out of them. Chances are you will benefit from a little Presentation Zen. Personally, I completely threw-out and reworked a presentation on Social Media I have been working on in an effort to apply some of approaches suggested in this book. Remember, a true Maverick is a wild card who stands apart from everyone else, don't you think it is time to differentiate yourself?
[BecomeMaverick]
Very cool - reminds me of the Steve Jobs approach
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