Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds - Free Book SummaryIntroduction Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery was released in 2008 and shortly became acknowledged as a new industry bible on the topic of business presentations and communications and in general. Reynolds walks the reader through a Zen-like path of simplifying presentations en route to becoming more natural and comprehensible. Just before you start presenting like Steve Jobs, you will learn how to prepare away from the computer, design under restraints with several basic rules, and deliver in a way which is the antidote to Death by PowerPoint. "Ruth, Thanks for the free executive summary - I'm buying Presentation Zen!" Executive Summary Presentations today are mostly boring and miss their target. PowerPoint and Keynote slides are used as documents instead of visual amplifiers to the presenter’s words. Instead of the common but wrong presentation methods, Reynolds offers a Zen-like guide to better and clearer communication and presentations. Presentation Zen offers to acknowledge that presentations require creativity, and to embrace simplicity under constraints as a motive. Through basic design principles – and not rules – you can achieve better clarity and impact your audience. With attention and being present at the moment, your delivery can scale up, and together with connecting with your audience, you will highly improve your presentations. Presenting in Today’s World. The common approach of PowerPoint presentations of slides full of bullet-points and text is considered normal, but it is not effective. We all know the feeling of Death by PowerPoint. Like a Japanese Bento, in great slide presentations the content is simple, balanced, and beautiful. Presentation Zen is an approach to presentations, not a set of rules. Creativity, Constraints and Planning Analog. Presentations require creativity, which in turn requires an open mind and a willingness to be wrong. Constraints help us focus. During preparations keep in mind: simplicity, clarity, brevity. To gain the required focus, turn off the computer and go analog and consider using papers and pens or post-its. The two key questions during your preparations: What’s your main point? Why does it matter? Crafting a Story. A presentation is never just about the facts, so make your presentation more story-like. Simplicity Matters. Through careful reduction of the nonessential, you can obtain simplicity, which is powerful and leads to greater clarity. When designing slides, keep the follow these concepts: subtlety, grace, and understated elegance. Also, include plenty of empty space. Design Principles and Techniques. Design is about making communication as easy and clear for the viewer as possible. First principle: remove nonessential elements and visual clutter, and avoid 3-D effect, to achieve the best signal-versus-noise ratio. This means that you communicate clearly with as little degradation of the message as possible. This free book summary of Presentation Zen is complimentary from the www.free-book-summary.com website. Want to say Thanks? Tell about the book summary to your friends, link to it from your blog, or include a link to it in a forum. Cheers! Prefer visuals over bullet points. Use empty space to better organize and clarify your slides. If elements in your slide are different, use strong contrast to show it. Use repetition to create unity among slides, use alignment to connect elements within a slide. Use the principle of proximity to ensure that related items are grouped together by the viewer. Sample Slides. Reynolds brings several pages of inspiring sample slides that no summary can capsulate. If the subject of presentations is important to you, don’t skip a good review of this chapter (in the complete book). Some points from the sample slides: avoid tired, overused software templates, and limit or avoid bullet points. Presentation Delivery. Be there. Presentations are like a conversation which requires your full presence and attention. Don’t worry or even think about mistakes, failure or success, be only in the moment of the presentation. The more you rehearse and practice, the more you will make it look easy and natural. You must appeal with both the logical and the emotional to have a connection with the audience. Finish the presentation a little earlier than the time you have for it. Keep the lights on so that the audience can see you and connect with you. Remove any barriers between you and the audience – avoid podiums and use a remote control for advancing your slides. "Ruth, I liked the free executive summary of Presentation Zen. Many Thanks!"
Presentation Zen is not another one in a long list of presentation guides; you will not find a list of PowerPoint rules in it. But if you give presentations – and who doesn’t have to communicate, even without the formality of a presentation – reading this book will definitely get you thinking, and if you’re open to it, none of your presentations will ever look again like the ordinary Death by PowerPoint. The Complete Book Reynolds, Garr. Presentation Zen (Berkeley, CA, New Riders, 2008).
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