Review of the 3 books of the Presentation Revolution

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There are three books which have ushered in and defined the PowerPoint Revolution. If you can only buy one, which one should you buy? Here’s my analysis of the three books and my recommendation.

Cliff Atkinson was the pioneer with Beyond Bullet Points. The Beyond Bullets approach is an entire system for creating a presentation with the support of non-bullet PowerPoint slides. It’s published by Microsoft and is a hybrid between a software how-to book and a presentation book. I find the system too limiting and constraining. Note: I have the 2005 edition of BBP - there is a 2007 edition which may be improved.

Garr Reynolds came next with Presentation Zen, based on his blog of the same name. His book is imbued with the philosophy of simplicity. If Cliff’s book is methodical, Garr’s is philosopical. The book attempts to cover most aspects of giving a presentation from planning the content, to designing the slides to the delivery itself. However, the strength of the book is the section on slide design. Garr made us non-designers aware of the importance of design in PowerPoint presentations. The discussion on the planning and delivery of a presentation is at a high conceptual level. There are useful insights for presenters with some experience but the lack of practical guidance could be frustrating for a beginner.

Then came Nancy Duarte with Slide:ology. Slide:ology is the most beautiful of the books. It is also the most focused. Nancy concentrates almost exclusively on slide design (there is an out-of-place section on audience analysis).

Here’s a table which summarises the strength and differences between the three books:

So which one would I buy? I would no longer recommend Beyond Bullet Points. Not when you can see what’s possible with slide design in Presentation Zen and Slide:ology.

If you want a philosophical discussion of simplicity in the art of presentation together with wonderful inspiration for designing better slides, go for Presentation Zen. But after I’d read Presentation Zen, I felt like I wanted a “A non-designer’s guide to slide design” to help me put into practice the principles and the inspiration that I had from Garr’s book. I could copy the ideas behind some of Garr’s ideas, but I felt like I didn’t have enough grounding in the basics to create my own designs.

Nancy’s book fulfills that need. So if you want the non-designer’s guide to PowerPoint slide design, together with visual inspiration, then Slide:ology is the book for you.

The top four things I learnt from Garr Reynolds’ workshop

Garr Reynolds ran a day-long workshop yesterday in Wellington, New Zealand. I’ve devoured his blog, poured over his book and I was very excited about attending this workshop. Here are the top four things I came away with.

1. Beauty matters 

Garr’s workshop was an aesthetic experience. His slides nourished my visual sense. It was like going to a contemporary art or photo exhibition. Beauty adds another dimension to your presentation. As a non-designer I feel empowered to create the same beauty in my PowerPoint slides. 

2. Branding of slides

Garr does not “brand” his slides with a logo, but there is an aesthetic sense which pervades and unifies his slides. This comes from:

• the fonts he uses
• repeated design elements eg: the style of borders around his images
• the consistent visual backdrop (the book cover image without the stones) he uses as a background to text when there is no image.

This is the way to brand slides. Corporate logos are visual clutter. If you have to have a logo, put it on the first and last slide only.

3. Choose visual metaphors carefully

Some visual metaphors are becoming cliches (just like clipart). For example, an image of people shaking hands to represent partnership. Garr’s advice is not to use the first visual metaphor that comes into your mind. Brainstorm first to generate some possibilities. That’s what the Duarte Design team do (Duarte are the creators of Al Gore’s slides in An Inconvenient Truth). When you go to istockphoto or your favourite photo site, look at how many downloads a photo has had - over 1,000 probably means that its turning into a cliche. John Windsor has a creative post on how to freshen up an otherwise tired visual metaphor.

4. Use photo editing software

To create beauty and impact with your slides, the next step is to use photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is a challenge for me - I’ve got the software but it takes me ages and some emotional frustration before I can produce anything. But as a result of Garr’s workshop I’m motivated to give it another go.

Thank you Garr for a stimulating and nourishing day.

Content is King

TED is an annual conference held in Monterey, California featuring presentations from the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Each speaker has 18 minutes to make their point. TED puts videos of the speakers on their website - this is an amazing treasure trove of material for observing and learning from great presenters. Garr Reynolds from the Presentation Zen blog has done a great job in highlighting some of the great speeches from TED and offering his comments. His comments generally focus on these areas:

1. The visual content of the presentation eg: slides, props
2. The delivery style of the presenter
3. The substance of the content.

My approach will be to analyse the process of the content. What I mean by the process of the content is such things as:

1. The key message of the presentation
2. The structure of the presentation
3. The examples and analogies used to support the presentation.

My aim in this analysis is to see what we can learn from TED speakers about planning the content of a business presentation. In a business presentation I believe Content is King. The audience is there for your content - what you have to say. At the beginning of our courses, we reinforce this by explaining the five domains of presenting (content, visuals, confidence, delivery and audience management). We then ask the participants:

“If you are going to a business presentation, as an audience member, which of these five is the most important to you?”

Most will answer that they are there primarily for the content - information of value what they will get from the presentation. You may not deliver it very well, you may be nervous and have no visual aids - but if you have good content you will still have a presentation that people will get value from.  This is an empowering concept for people starting out in their presentation careers. Andrew Abela on his Extreme Presentation blog and Tom Antion on his Great Public Speaking blog have both also discussed the primacy of content. Of course, if you also have great visuals and an engaging delivery style that’s great - but by themselves these things are not sufficient to make a great presentation.

That’s why my focus in analysing TED presentations will be the process of the content.