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Andrew Dlugan at Six Minutes has put together a list with brief descriptions and general categorization of 78 speaking related blogs including this one. For content die hards, you can conveniently subscibe to all 78 of them at once.
"Good speakers do two things well: they let their own personalities come through and they have a wide range of emotional expressiveness."
Nick Morgan
"Saying what we think, gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know."
Cullen Hightower
Elegant.
That's the word that I'd use for an overall descriptor of Garr Reynolds' new book "presentationzen - Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery". The book is beautiful with a "zen sensibility", great graphics and lots of good examples of before and after or just plain good presentations. The book is well organized into 5 major modules:
From its foreword by Guy Kawasaki, cleverly "written" using PowerPoint slide to its sharing of the top Slideshare show for 2007, he's got a winner in this book for those looking for a clean overview of what makes for creating and delivering good presentations. If you're looking for a book on techniques to use PowerPoint 2003, 2007 or Keynote you'll need to look elsewhere. This book is not software specific, a benefit if you're reading it while on the road as a passenger en route to Minneapolis which I did earlier this month.
I like how he reminds the reader that presentations involve 3 tools - the slides, the speaker notes and the handouts. While many people think of these as all of the same, he effectively deconstructs the role of each of them in making a presentation effective.
Another comment, I'd make is that while Garr is very big on the use of striking and memorable photography, something I generally agree with, the reality of corporate budgets, presentation topics and the nature of internal presentations often intrudes and makes these visually rich presentations difficult to pull off. Plus, not every presenter has the technical knowledge or software to manipulate images in the way that the presenters showecased are able to do.
Garr does direct the reader to iStockphoto, and includes a special offer for readers.
All in all, I'd rate this book and his blog an A for your reading list and as an addition to your presentation skills library.
I've written a new column in the ongoing series of Buzz Network columns for Wisconsin Technology Network. The new column "5 fearless technology forecasts for 2008" looks at 5 key trends or forecasts that will be impacting e-business and marketing in 2008.
Paul Gibler
the Web Chef
ConnectingDots
"As long as people accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it."
Dick Cavett
Group News Blog has a very interesting analysis of the appeals that Obama, Edwards and Clinton are evoking in their presentation of their qualifications to the American people. Through their presentations and word choices they promise three different futures. Blogger Jesse Wendel claims that through their actions and through their words they've positioned themselves in three distinct ways.
I found this a fascinating analysis of how their presentations and word choices might be positioning them in the political market to drive their respective and fluctuating standings in the polls.
As a student and teacher of presentations skills there is a something for all of us to learn from this campaign.
Someone at The New York Times must be giving lots of PowerPoint presentations to the editorial staff. For the second time this week, one of the editorials referenced PowerPoint in an unfavorable light. First we had David Brooks using it to explain Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and next we have Roger Cohen in his editorial "Brazilian Lessons for 2008" dishing PowerPoint in this quote:
"So I've resolved to adopt Brazilian karma for 2008 and forget all the little irritants that plague American lives: microwaved croissants, high-five contagion, globalized brunch, death by PowerPoint, shops calling themselves "shoppes," the inconsistency of belt-and shoe remoal rules at airports, Apple addicts vaunting the latest gadgets and people who convey agitation or anger by writing in ALL CAPS."
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else has seen."
Arthur Schopenhauer
Today's newspaper reading of two of my four daily newspapers (yeah I know I'm old fashioned, I still read print), yielded a couple of interesting references to PowerPoint.
The first one was a Hi & Lois Cartoon, where they are visiting with friends who say their projector has died and proceed to show a PowerPoint presentation of their recent visit to Disney World. I had to laugh at this one, since we do the same following trips when we want to share the many photos that we've taken. We've taken this one step beyond PowerPoint with one of my Christmas gifts this year, a digital frame with a capacity for 1000 photos. The problem so far is that the images aren't in any collection order and of course it doesn't have some of the managed transitions and interesting graphics that I can add with PowerPoint.
The other PowerPoint reference was more topical and damning in an editorial "Road to Nowhere" by David Brooks in today's New York Times, where he criticizes Mitt Romney's campaign strategy with the following:
"And yet as any true conservative can tell you, the sort of rational planning Mitt Romney embodies never works. The world is too complicated and human reason is too limited. The PowerPoint mentality always fails to anticipate something. It always yields unintended consequences."
For the political junkies among you this editorial is an interesting analysis of why Romney can't win in the general election.
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