Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte, and Cliff Atkinson are the authors of three hugely popular books on presentation design in the last five years.
What else do all three have in common? They all point to Richard E Mayer’s Multimedia Learning as recommended reading for presentation design.
And I agree.
This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.
If you want to master visual communication, this book is for you.
If you want to impress your audience with eye-popping slides, this book is for you.
If you want to break free from the Death By PowerPoint pandemic, this book is for you.
Nancy Duarte has written slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. (Learn more about Nancy Duarte in a Six Minutes interview!)
Ever since my copy arrived, I can’t put it down. I’ve carried it to and from work every day so that I can read a few pages on breaks. It’s that good.
I highly recommend slide:ology. It is destined to become a classic reference text for presentation skills.
Stephen Kosslyn has written a wonderful book for all presenters: Clear and to The Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations.
The subtitle for the book promises to illuminate the psychology of PowerPoint. Does it deliver?
In a way, yes. The 8 principles, dozens of examples, and hundreds of tips reveal much that would improve your PowerPoint skills.
However, this book delivers so much more. The 8 psychological principles can be applied to many aspects of public speaking beyond PowerPoint design.
Would you like to win a Macbook Air?
An iPod Touch?
An Amazon Kindle?
A copy of Presentation Zen?
The World’s Best Presentation Contest is returning to SlideShare for 2008.
Get creative, enter the contest, and you can win one of those prizes.
Leave a comment linking to your entry. If a number of Six Minutes subscribers enter, I’ll feature those entries in a future article.
When Steve Jobs speaks, people listen.
Why?
No. You can easily learn these techniques and present like Steve Jobs.
In this video from bnet.com, communications coach Carmine Gallo provides an insightful synopsis of the methods that Steve Jobs uses to captivate his audience.
Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design teaches you how to visually communicate your ideas.
This free ebook was created by John Emerson as a tool to help advocacy groups:
You may not speak on behalf of an advocacy group, but every time you speak, you are attempting to deliver a message. Your message will be more compelling if you understand and apply the visualization principles in this guide.
I previously reviewed the fabulous Presention Zen book by Garr Reynolds.
My favorite aspect of the book was the hundreds of sample slides which illustrate design principles, particularly those illustrating before versus after transformations.
I’ve just discovered a great online resource from Garr Reynolds which contains a representative sample of the book contents.
This article reviews a fantastic talk by Majora Carter titled “Greening the Ghetto” at TED. I loved this emotionally charged talk detailing her fight for environmental justice and her efforts as director of Sustainable South Bronx.
Majora Carter’s TED talk has both incredible strengths — passion, energy, authenticity — and one unfortunate weakness — rapid speaking rate. Both extremes are worthy of public speaking analysis.
It turns out that your public speaking phobias and fears are unwarranted.
Web comic xkcd has charted the number of deaths from numerous activities, but no public speaking deaths have been reported.
As I write this, Google searches demonstrate that public speaking is a non-life threatening activity. All of these return zero results:
Presentation Zen book reviews, to be more accurate. Lots of them.
In the spirit of Rotten Tomatoes – a site I always check before buying or renting a movie – this article gathers book reviews from public speaking experts and fellow bloggers.
A summary of their opinion is simple: buy this book and the slides in your next presentation will benefit.
Hans Rosling presented a fantastic talk at TED. The delivery was inspiring, the mood was electric, and it was all about statistics. Yes, statistics – a topic most often associated with dry and boring presentations.
Hans Rosling uses six simple techniques for presenting data which transform a run-of-the-mill presentation into a must-see presentation.
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