Presentation Zen

I just finished reading Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynold. This book provides guidelines for preparing, designing and delivering the presentation in simple and creative way. It includes practical examples, stories in simple terms which are easy to understand. I think this book is very useful for presenters and people who want to improve their presentation delivery skills. Here is what I learnt from this book.

Presentation has three phases: Preparation, Design and Delivery.

Phase I: Preparation

• Start with beginner mind because beginner's mind is fresh, enthusiastic and open to vast posibilities of ideas and solutions.
• Always plan away from computer. Plan with pen and paper or whiteboard. This will save time and also the analog approach to sketch out ideas and create a rough storyboard helps to solidify & simplify the message.
• Ask yourself two important question:
  
  • What's your point? 
  • Why does it matter?
  These questions will put presenter in audience shoes and will help him to understand what audience want and how effectively to convey the point.
• "Create a Document not a Slideument". Don't combine slide and document together. Always prepare presentation with these three components:
• Slides: for audience
• Notes: for presentor's reference
• Handouts: audience copy
• Six principles to remember while preparing for presentation:
• Simplicity will help to deliver message effectively to audience. Make presentation simple. Don't include everything, include only points containing of core message.
• Unexpectedness is violating people's expectation and creating curiosity. Making audience aware that they have a gap in their knowledge and then filling the gap with the answers to the puzzel (guiding them). 
• Concreteness is natural speech with real examples, not abstractions.
• Credibility is putting the terms that people can visualize. 
• Emotion, whenever possible put ideas in human terms by showing images or pictures rather than words. This will have more impact on audience. 
• Stories with real examples gets attention and are easier to understand than the list of rules. Story come in by information, emotion and visualization. It makes the presentation memorable.

Phase II: Design

• Design is not decoration. It is to make things more clearer and organize information. It is about making conscious decisions about inclusion and exclusion.
• Four design principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignement and Proximity. 
• Techniques to prepare design:
• Images/ Pictures: Use of more images makes the presentation memorable and powerful. Image should cover entire slide and should have plenty of empty space so that text can fit comfortably with good contrast.
• Grids and the Rule of Thirds: Divide the slide into nine boxes just like tic-tac-toe board and adjust the text or image into 1/3rd portion of slide. This will help to create clean and simple presentation and also saves the time.
• Bullet points: are effective to summarize the key points. It is advisable to use bullet point followed by 1-7-7 rule. The rule means 1 idea per slide, only 7 lines and 7 words per line. But bullet points are not effective in live talk and should be avoided whenever possible.
• Logo: Logo's, trademarks and footers are not advisable to use in every slide because it's an unnecessary bombarding on audience. It should be display on first and last slide.

Phase III: Delivery

• Increase confidence by rehearsing more and more.
• Complete presentation before allotted time.
• It is better to leave audience satisfied yet yearning for a bit more, than leaving them stuffed and with feeling that they had more than enough.
• Audience must always see and hear presentor. Don't switch off lights and always use wireless mic whenever possible. This creates bonding between presenter and audience which results in effective presentation.

Along with explaining these phases, Reynolds also mentions about two popular events: PechaKucha and TED talks. These two events helps to spread ideas by delivering presentations.  

• PechaKucha presentation format is simple: 20 slides x 20 seconds. Each slide is allocated 20secs and is set to automatically move to next slide after 20sec. Presenter has to tell story in sync with the visuals in 6 minutes 40 seconds. PechaKucha is changing attitudes toward presentation in a wonderfully creative and unconventional way.
  
  

• TED talks is annual conference where world's most fascinating thinkers and doers are invited to share their great ideas in only 18 minutes. The time limitation usually results in very focused talks. TEDs mission is to "spread ideas", which they do by releasing best talks online on their site, so that ideas can reach wast majority of population around the world.
  
  

This book has provided a good balance of principles and concepts, inspiration and practical examples. I have never given thoughts on these details while preparing and delivering presentations in past. This book has given me insight into getting better. Thanks Reynolds!