Garr Reynolds is now an icon for all the presenters (who seriously care about their presentations). Several of the things he talked about is applicable in presentations created for informational purposes. This can be marketing and advertisement, personal branding, book review or anything. However, when it comes to technical presentations, it becomes a different story.

Though this book does not talk about techniques in this area, I believe these can be evolved from the principles presented in the presentation zen. I am curious if Reynolds has started researching about technical presentations and how persentation zen can be extended to address the boredom and save the world.

Overall, a wonderful buy! Remember that you also get some stock images for free with the purchase of this book.

Saranyan
http://saranyan.wordpress.com

In this beautifully designed and well written manifesto, Garr Reynolds illustrates how your presentations can engage and even inspire audiences, with just a little more effort and imagination in the preparation and design stages.

Most presentations we see are lists of bullet points. They are entirely 'left brain.' The best presentations, Reynolds says, use 'whole mind' aptitudes and talents. During preparation, he advises, get away from your computer. Use paper and pen to sketch out rough ideas in the early stages.

Remember that design is not decoration. Design is about making conscious decisions about inclusion and exclusion. Simplicity is powerful. Simplicity 'comes from an intelligent desire for clarity that gets to the essence of an issue, something which is not easy to do.'

Make your audience feel something. Example: You're explaining the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Do you use bullet points, data, and talking points? Or do you show pictures of the wreckage and flooding and human suffering?

The best book on creating great presentations I've ever read. If you're going to read one, this is it. Please watch my presentations and web casts (http://silverlight.net) starting mid-June through the next few months and see if it changes what I do; it had better. Truly a great book, very high signal:noise ration, very hgih quality, well worth taking the time to read.

I've been doing public speaking for twenty-five years, and teaching before that, and I'd guess that I've created hundreds of Powerpoint presentations. But I still gained some great insight into alternative approaches for using Powerpoint from this book.

If you're an advocate of simplicity, this book will resonate with you. It doesn't tell you exactly what to do, or even give you a process (as Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Bpg-Other) does). However, I found that Presentation Zen was much more thought-provoking, and it affected my presentation style much more than Beyond Bullet Points. It has a generous number of examples taken from real presentations, and these really help. It's approach of "here's a typical prosaic way, and here are some better ways" will make you unsatisfied with traditional, boring Powerpoint slides.

It also delves into using Powerpoint as a supporting tool rather than as the central focus of your presentation, and goes beyond Powerpoint into the finer points of presenting. The last section named "delivery" contains two chapters: "The Art of Being Completely Present" and "Connecting with an Audience". They don't really talk about Powerpoint at all (except for some comments on using a slide clicker), instead concentrating on helping you to focus on what's important - making a presentation a good experience for both you and your audience.

The style and philosophy presented work especially well for presentations in which the primary purpose is persuasion. I don't think presenters of technical material (which is what I do) need to dogmatically adopt all of the techniques in this book. But even a technical presentation needs introductory material on why the presentation is important. The audience must be persuaded of that before they'll even pay attention.

I've bought two of these for colleagues, one an experienced presenter in sales/marketing/promotion, and one just starting out in technical presentation. I believe it will help both.

Based on other reviews I thought I would eitehr love this book or hate. It would either be a great source of insights on presenting or a jargon-laden book that could best be described as "clever." Thankfully, it is the former.

Presentation Zen presents a philosophy on presenting rather than a rule book on what each slide should look like (since that will vary based on what you're presenting). And while I was doubtful up front (as you can tell above), the book is very engaging and, with each chapter, you can viaualize how what he is saying will make for better presentations. Of course the essence of what he is saying is pretty simple - communicate clearly and think of your audience- but he speaks clearly about why some of the things we have done for years which seem like they are doing that really are not. Bullet-riddled slides may convey a lot of information, but they are not communicating well or really thinking about your audience. Just putting a report in landscape mode or in PowerPoint does not make it a presentation.

As the title says this book has "simple ideas on presentation design and delivery" which will be immediately useful to anyone with an open-mind about changing what we have been doing to our audiences until this point.

This book is about getting the correct mindset and preparing for a presentation. It's message is that presentations today suck, and it's because we forgot to take the time to think about it.

This book is not about design techniques, but more about the framework of a good design, and laying down the fundamentals and basics before you work your way through your own techniques.

So in summary, if you need a book to convince yourself (and others!) to make good presentations, this book is a must - but if you're already an expert communicator - this book will be just a fun read, but likely you won't gain anything new.

I think that this book show the way to make better presentations, because Reynolds tell about the creation processes: desing (with pencil and paper) and focus her book in practical aspects.

This is an awesome book! Just great.

If you are interested in doing better project presentations, this is an awesome book!

Highly recommend!

Thanks
Bill Dow

When it comes to PowerPoint presentations I've always been guilty of simply grabbing a standard template and pouring in my bullets. I never gave much thought to aesthetics, which is why most of my slides look awful compared to the ones in Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds.

I can see why this book sells so extremely well. It's a beautiful work and features all sorts of great, visual examples to help drive home the author's points. Here are just a few of the great lessons I learned from reading this book:

Don't jump right into the slideware tool...lay out your thoughts using pencil and paper first. Better yet, do it with pencil and PostIt Notes. This seemed so backwards to me at first. After all, I've got the computer so why not use it from the start? After reading what the author had to say about this though I can see I'd greatly benefit from this initial step.

How many times have you been asked, "how many slides will you have in your deck?" I get hit with that every time I make a presentation. I love this excerpt from the book: The number of slides is not the point. If your presentation is successful, the audience will have no idea how many slides you used, nor will they care. Obviously you can take this to both extremes, but the point is we should be less focused on the number of slides.

How about these two questions that probably don't get enough serious consideration early on: What's your point? Why does it matter? Again, I frequently get too hung up on what I want to say and not so much on what I think the audience wants to hear about. I'm scheduled to make a presentation to a group of grad students in a few weeks and I'm starting to realize I don't know enough about their interests, goals from the session, etc., to properly frame my talk.

Don't force your logo onto every slide. Wow, that one won't go over well with our corporate communication team, but, it makes a ton of sense. As I think back about all the presentations I've sat through, there seemed to be a direct correlation between the degree of boredom and the number of times the speaker's corporate logo appeared. Seriously, if you look through this book you'll see templates are for losers. The most effective slides have few words/numbers and use an attractive graphic to help reinforce the point.

Look at each slide as a 3x3 grid and focus graphical elements more in the outer portions of the grid or on the intersection points of the vertical/horizontal lines. This one really becomes clear when you see it in action. The book features several wonderful examples that show how this sort of off-center balance is highly effective (and similar to the effect used in photography).

Speaking of images, the book features a list of some of the better stock photo sites. The author's favorite is iStockphoto but I prefer a free alternative called Stock.xchng (also included in the author's list).

Having grown up in Japanese culture, I find it very interesting to view the subject matter from a cultural or spiritual framework such as zen.

I'm also impressed by how well Garr Reynolds treated hard topics like wabi, sabi and shibumi.

A must-read for anyone trying to improve communication skills!

Presentation zen is the kind of book whose message will help you during your whole career. It doesn't give you practical advice on how to craft the perfect set of powerpoint slides. Rather, it raises the right questions about presentation and answers them in an engaging, thought-provoking and well-written way.
If you are a professionnal, you will make a presentation in a few days, weeks or months, so do yourself and your audience a great service and pick up this book.

Nothing particularly exciting nor revelatory going on here. Some nice layouts and references / quotes but at the end of the day it's still powerpoint - like putting lipstick on a pig!

Very high quality teaching material on how to prepare and deliver presentations. Simple, readable, and well illustrated, it doesn't contain a single unnecessary word or image. It was enjoyable enough to read through in my spare moments in a day and come away feeling refreshed and creatively inspired.

Most books on using presentation software seem to start with the assumption that the software makes sense and that organizing content is the secret to a good presentation. Here, Garr Reynolds strips away those assumptions and asks you to think of presentations as they truly are--visual stories. They're more like movies than books and Garr opens up the possibilities through a radically different approach to designing slides.

The book offers many beautiful examples and an engaging and reflective style that inspires you to create truly impactful presentations. These principles are particularly important for government communicators.

This book will change the way you use PowerPoint. It is a must for developing a great presentation. Excellent examples, great writing, and easy to employ ideas. It has opened my eyes and I will forever be changed in my use of PowerPoint slides. My presentations will be just plain better for the audience.

This book will revolutionize the way you present. It includes invaluable tips on how to plan your presentation, simplify your ideas, tell interesting stories, and put together a presentation that will hook your audience. A must read!

I can't add a great deal to the praise already stated for this great little book. It is a quick, easy read, but you have to read it -carefully-. This is about changing how you think about a presentation, not a checklist or a template for giving presentations.

At work, I cringe through many, many "Death b Powerpoint" presentations, and I get compliments from colleagues on mine. They grasp that there is something different about how I present, but they don't understand the philosophy enough to duplicate it. Get this book and all will be clear.

If you present highly technical information, you will have to modify some of the ideas in the book, because it is essential to make some of the slide more substantial, for instance with graphs prepared from a good graphing program (Something like Igor, NOT Excel). However, this is a minor modification, and the backbone of your presentation can follow the philosophy so clearly expressed in this book.

Very highly recommended.

This book is a must. If you are a Power Point serious user, and recognize that you (and the people in the auditorium) are tired with the "standard" way you do your presentations, you must buy and read this beautiful book. You will read it in hours - it is marvelous. I strongly recommend this one.

Garr does a terrific job of explaining the basics of presenting, debunking the current trend of "put an outline on a page and read it". He correctly coaches the reader that the "outline method" (my term, not his) is offensive to the crowd and adds little to the presentation. He presents the information of such researchers as the Heath brothers and Tufte, two giants in the field. While unnecessary for those of us who are very familiar with their work, for anyone else learning about excellence in presentations they are a welcome additional overview.

What makes this book stand apart, however, is Garr's commitment to share with the reader presentation slides and concepts, so that the ideas are brought to life. With as visual as the concepts are, it would have been a huge miss to have not included many examples. He provided this essential linkage and payout to the theories and suggestions his book presents.

My copy is already a bit battered from use, and I suspect it will get more so as time continues. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking to take their presentation skills to the next level.

'Presentation Zen' starts with a very bold proposal, you have to change and stop following the way everyone uses PowerPoint, forget bullet points, use of too much text, lot of ideas cramped in one slide, not to use presentation as contents holder, etc.
Like in Zen philosophy, the first things you need to recognize are the flaws in your reality, and then embrace a new way of thinking and doing. In the case of presentations and keynotes, you need to understand how to effectively share ideas (read 'Made To Stick'), and the logic of a changing world (read 'A Whole New Mind'), and apply this to build, simple, emotional, easy to follow presentations.
This book applies, through a lot of analogies, elements of the japanese culture because it stands out about thinking and executing everyday things.
It's not just a book that teaches you a new technique, it encourages your heart and mind to be creative, innovative and free. And the latter its what makes this book even more valuable.

This picks up from Turfte's "Beautiful Evidence" book and more so. If you give presentations at all you need this book. It is so far the best book on Powerpoint (Keynote) I have read. The ideas are not just talked about, you walk through how to do it with plenty of before and after pictures. A very graphical and stunning book. If you have ever felt that your audience was just not getting your message, or you understand why Steve Jobs out presents Bill Gates, or you appreciate the Guy Kawasaki style, then this is the book for you. Buy it, read and use it and do not lend it!

A lot of ideas for presenters accumulated in the book that are useful for entire presentation process, from the beginning when looking for opportunity to make a presentation till the end when on stage presenting the result.

The main idea, the Book gives you APPROACH, NOT strict guidelines; like laws or school rules [you must add this, you must use that]. Don't be confused with that (as I was at the beginning, when started to read), book does not contain any magic tips or openings, that will make you the best presenter in the world. It gives the ideas and experience, that you can use for the advantage.

Book starts with description about ekiben, special type of food that is sold in Japan trains. Author finds ekiben great balanced type of food, which he calls a pleasant way to end the day. Author wonders, where is the problem to make all the presentation in the same way, balanced and harmonized...

You will find plenty of author's thoughts and ideas, that can be very helpful for your future presentations and hints how to find the balance.

Book provides great examples, one of them is from Seth Godinh [if I'm not mistaken], when presenting about pollution in your city, what is better
1) four bullet points about pollution data
or
2) photo of bunch of dead birds, some smog or even diseased lung, and talk give this information enclosed in four bullets.

Which is better and more effective, well I think the answer is clear, and there are others examples too.

There are other examples and ideas, that you may find interesting and learn to make your presentations better (at least it worked for me). However, I'm just rookie in this stuff.

This Book should be placed for your must have category, if you have any relation to presentations.

In this age of information overload and short attention spans, the ability to deliver clear and concise presentations is one of the most important skills.

Instead, business presentations today are mostly long, unfocused and boring. In a typical PowerPoint presentation, the audience is forced to sit through slide after slide of charts, bullet points and text while the presenter reads from the screen.

As a result, both presenter and audience feel stressed and disengaged, and everybody ends up wasting their time (this common situation is also referred to as Death by PowerPoint).

Garr Reynolds' quest to end PowerPoint presentations as we know them started years ago when, riding on the express train from Tokyo to Osaka, he had his epiphany: after watching a Japanese businessman nervously flipping through a printout of poorly designed PowerPoint slides in an obvious state of confusion, he decided to launch his Presentation Zen blog, now the most popular presentation design site on the web.

Presentation Zen (the book) is organized in three main sections:
*Preparation
*Design
*Delivery

In the way of the true classics, this book is more than a simple step by step tutorial. It outlines an approach, a strategy to solve the complex communication issues of today. It not only tells us how to do a presentation, but instead takes us on a journey to discover what is it that we need to communicate in the first place, and how to make it resonate with our audience.

Here are some of the things I learned:

*How to discover your core message (the one thing, and only one, that you want your audience to remember).
*The importance of having quiet time to think. Busyness kills creativity. We all need some quiet time alone to come up with our best ideas.
*Use two often forgotten PowerPoint tools: notes (so you don't have to read from the screen) and handouts (so you don't have to cram all the data on your slides)
*Less is more: remove from slides every single element that is not necessary and doesn't add to our core message.
*PowerPoint is not a document creation tool. It's job is to provide visual aid to our presentation. The slides themselves are not the presentation.
*Images are more powerful than words.

Drinking from his own Kool-Aid, Reynolds packs his book with visual examples of great (and not so great) presentations, so we can see the difference. Also, he summarizes the most important ideas at the end of each chapter, and links to great presentation resources on the web (my favorite is TED, where you can see the great presenters of our time in action).

This book is not for everyone. Those readers who are looking for a few quick tips on how to do a PowerPoint presentation may get impatient with the author's frequent and lengthy references to the Zen philosophy and concepts.

However, if you bear with him, you will learn more than just do a presentation. You will learn how to analyze and solve complex communications problems, how to see the big picture from your customers' perspective, and how to effectively position products and services in the marketplace.

If you have to do presentations for a living (and who doesn't these days?) read this book and keep it handy for future reference. And, while you're at it, add Presentation Zen (the blog) to your blogroll or favorites.

This had a lot of good ideas from the author as well as other sources. It made the points clearly and was really helpful.

I found Presentation Zen disappointing. It seemed to violate in writing style many of the principles it seeks to correct in slide design, reading more like a meandering conversation over drinks than a well-laid-out, step-by-step primer. For example, the book was frustratingly repetitive, with even the simplest points restated through multiple chapters (really, how many times do you have to suggest using post-it notes?). Some central points came and went quietly in sidebars, and others completely lacked explanation or justification (i.e. the rule for using six words maximum per slide). Every time I thought I was about to discover a new and enlightening concrete principle of visual design with valid reasoning, it seemed the point from the previous chapter was repeated instead. Moreover, exceptions or alternate approaches also weren't considered, such as times when using a whopping seven words on a slide might be useful, or when more complex slide builds and transitions could help an audience grasp a concept. In addition, many of the points made in the book, such as the value of "taking risks," seemed obvious and trite.

Overall, like many tedious slide shows I've endured, I felt the book could have been half as long and made its points with the same clarity, and would have showed more respect for the reader's time. To its credit, it does offer some useful ideas on slide design, and some excellent graphic examples. It's also visually appealing, with beautiful slide reprints, tons of "good" and "bad" examples to learn from, and cleanly-designed pages. Still, I'd trade the appealing design for tighter, more solid, more useful content.

I will give 6 stars if I could. I am frustrated many a time reading books which are scored 5 stars in customer review. As compared to ordinary "5 stars" books, this one deserve 6 stars! Anyone who is serious about presentation should get one. I brought several copies as gift to my best friends as well.

go thro' this book once more,
go thro' your story, and
go thro' your slides.

You'd find that the PZ approach evangelized by Garr cuts thro' all the non-essentials and then, lets you present your beautiful story as you know it to the audience. I agree with 'Even Teachers Present' comment that the way you present the content/story matters more than the content itself. As a lecturer myself, my single most important aim in classroom is to make my students understand my lectures. I do receive a lot of ready-made powerpoint/pdf slides from book publishers, however I always design my own slides. That idea came when I started following Garr's fantastic Presentation Zen blog. Designing one's slides/presentation would be synonymous to taking l'il journeys into yourself, bring out those rich experiences and merge them with the present to create a beautiful presentation your audience would certainly appreciate. And the PZ approach shows you the tools to do just that.
What I really like about the PZ book is that I have the presentation wisdoms in my hand and I can make mini notes in the book. Though.. I wouldn't recommend anyone to be too carnal to this beautiful book ;-). Yes, it's that good!
No, no second thoughts. Go buy it!=)

First off I have to admit I am a bit bias, I have read Garr blog for years now. Nonetheless, this book embodies what a great powerpoint is and isn't.

Be careful what you wish for, after reading this book you may have an epiphany that 95% of the power points presented are truly awful.

A lot of the content and concepts of the book are covered in his blog, but this is a better easy to use offline reference.

Outstanding book. Wish everyone I coach would read this...and give just a bit of the concept a try. Sure would save me days! Understated and Elegent! Great message.

This one is a no brainer. Buy the book. Here's 3 reasons why:

- It's Simple, clear, brief and to the point. I find the length of the book a huge selling point. I don't want 400 pages of crammed text on the topic. Garr covered the topic thoroughly in under 250 and the fact that I didn't have to spend a week reading it makes it all that much better to me.

- Focus on design. Reynolds understands that a good presentation is a well designed presentation. People do judge books by their cover and if you want your presentation to succeed it better look good.

- The story. It's all about the story. If you don't have a good story to tell, then people are going to have a hard time connecting with you.

Kudos to Garr Reynolds for an excellent blog followed up by a well written book.

I do not have a lot of time to give a detailed review (I am working on a presentation for our CEO) but I think this book is awesome, and was immediately helpful. I also strongly reccomend A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.

I will agree with everyone for what the book does it is great! Whets the appetite and gets the creative juices starting to flow. I think my presentations like a lot of preachers don't exactly fit into this mold. I would love to see a premier on how he was able to do some of he effects. I would like to see when you presentation is involved more with an outline rather than "business charts". I have looked a bought a lot of books on presenting even the Keynote books by others and haven't seen that niche covered.
Would love to have a CD with some of the presentations he speaks about on it where you could take a modify and use in your own work.
I guess I am still looking for a Preacher who uses Power Point, Keynote every Sunday to the same audience to write a book.
Still with all this said Garr has a Home Run here. He has come the closest to my ultimate book than anyone else.

Respectfully Yours,

Mike Hughes, D.Min., Th.D., Ph.D.

As a designer, I appreciated the 'design primer' - and as a person interested in Asian philosophy, I enjoyed the Zen observations and quotations.

This book should be on the shelf of anyone who is in the profession of making presentations to sell, persuade, or communicate. A wonderful book that practices what it preaches: simplicity, clarity, beauty, and being great.

I have been reading Garr's blog for about a year and was delighted when he announced that he was writing Presentation Zen. When the book arrived, I determined to read it slowly, soak up the ideas, and savor having all that information at my fingertips. (I love the web, but I love my books, too.) Garr has taken when he knows and presented it in a logical format, on pages that practice what he preaches, while providing solid chunks of useful information for anyone who makes presentations.

And that's the heart of this book - it is for anyone who wants to better their presentation style. I am a teacher and make much use of an interactive white board. Teachers are, by nature, presenters. This book is as much for us as it is for those who make a living as professional speakers and slide makers. Teachers use bulletin boards, interactive white boards, and handouts, as well as slide shows and other media, all as a means of informing and presenting. We aim to reach a diverse set of learners. Heavens only knows there are a lot of us who could benefit by improving our presentation and slide/handout skills so that our students are not lost in a maze of jibberish on the page, screen or in what we say.

I intend to incorporate many of Garr's suggestions as I teach faculty how to use interactive white boards, because it isn't just the content, it's also very much how the content is presented that impacts our students.

And I'm waiting for his next book!

There's a reason that none of the country's best presentation coaches and presenters want you to purchase this book: that's because it will put the former out of business, and make you as good as the latter. Seriously!

Garr Reynolds has done what everyone else (at least among the presentation cognoscente) has been talking about for years. He has created what is truly THE book that is an absolute, positive must-read for everyone who is even thinking about presenting. I coach hundreds of entrepreneurs and CEOs each year for their fundraising road shows, and Garr has written and illustrated with stunning clarity the essence of what I and others have been preaching for years: visual clarity, simplicity, presence, planning and more.

If you are even *thinking* about buying a book on presentation skills, this is it. After you devour it cover to cover, you can then go on to the two other books I recommend: "Presenting to Win" by Jerry Weissman, and "The Articulate Executive" by Granville Toogood (the top presentation coaches on their respective sides of the country.) But start here, heed the lessons in this instant classic, and your audiences will be guaranteed to be putty in your hands.

David S. Rose (Described by BusinessWeek as "The Pitch Coach")

I have been Reading Garr's blog for a while now, so when word broke that he was producing a hard-copy read I was excited. At last, something to leave lying around my desk to flick through whilst producing another PowerPoint epic war-and-peace (Hopefully more peace than war!).

It's a great read. Essential, actually. PowerPoint should ship with a Surgeon General warning. Only "presentationzen certified presenters" would get a security key enabling them to "Save Presentation"... thus saving as all from the dreaded DbPPT*.

Now that I have read it, how do I get others to read and follow?

* = Death by PowerPoint.

This book was fantastic. I just finished it and it was meaty. There are so many practical examples of how to design a presentation, but also how to give a presentation. As Garr points out, a simple, concise, and clear message is the backbone of a great presentation. He has provided the tools to help make people become great presenters.

I've been following the Presentation Zen website for a while, and it's nice to see the book after so much time incubating.

This is an excellent book for presenters tired of "death by power point." I have checked out lots of other presentation books, and by far, this is the best. The graphics and layout are beautiful, and it has had a profound influence on my presentations. You will need to have a solid grasp of power point and some of its lesser used tools to achieve maximum impact (PP is a hugely powerful program, rarely used to its full potential).

Want to get a feel for the basic theme of this book and what it preaches? See any of Steve Jobs' latest keynotes to get an idea. Clean. Straightforward. Classy. And smooth baby.

Following Garr's advice, my presentations now get mouth-open attention from the audience and kudos from peers. Garr and this book will make you a Presentation Jedi Master.

On the excellent side I felt the visuals in the book complimented the written text really well and at times I felt as if I was hearing Garr (even though I have never seen him present) doing a live slideshare presentation. Another great thing about the book is that you get an insight into how he prepares for presentations as well as quotes and tidbits from other presentation experts like Nancy Duarte and Guy Kawasaki. All in all it is a beautiful book that is extremely well written.

On the flipside because I am and have been a fan of Garr Reynolds and his blog for quite some time, I would have actually given this book 3 or 3 and a half stars, simply because a lot of the ideas in the book are on his site of the same name. I have also read most of the books he recommends (and quotes excessively in the book), so I was slightly disappointed that I have been down this road. With that said however, what Garr does well, is he presents core ideas really well and although at times it seems as if the book is a bunch of book and blog post summaries it somehow works. So it is not as revolutionary as Made to Stick or a Whole New Mind and as such can't get the five rating from me, the unintiated will enjoy this book and should have it in their library.

So the question is would I recommend this book?
If you have never heard of Garr Reynolds or his blog and you are interested in changing the way you think about presentations and improving your own, BUY this book NOW, BUY every book he recommends,BOOKMARK his blog [...]

If you are already a fan of Garr, BUY this book because now you can walk around with some of the best posts from his blog everywhere you go. In fact if he was selling his grocery list on Amazon I would buy it because of the impact his way of thinking has made on my presentations and I need and want to thank him in a tangible way. I hope this is the first of many books.

Presentation Zen is perfect. It opened my eyes to using power point much more effectively. Gary outlines exactly what the pitfalls are and gives clear, clean, excellent design direction to use this tool to its best advantage. Thanks, Gary.

Buy it! You won't be sorry. Like a great speech it leaves you wanting more. Especially, more Garr Reynolds. If I had one recommendation it would be that - more Garr Reynolds and less reliance on all the other experts, and books on presentation. It's well written, the ideas are sound, and the book itself is beautifully presented. An example of what Garr proposes.

Besides the intelligence and expertise of the author, the reader also benefits from Reynolds's distillation of the wisdom and advice of his own masters and teachers - what a wonderful opportunity. The book is filled with everything you need to know about presentations before you turn yourself (or your designer) loose with PowerPoint or Keynote. Besides the design advice, 100% of which rang true based on my experience, I found the technical info I was looking for (how big to make a photo to use as a background in PowerPoint) and a great list of photo sources. Reynolds obviously knows about creating books as well as designing presentations. I read Presentation Zen straight through from beginning to end, which I recommend.

For years now I've been doing presentations and giving lectures all around Israel and most of the Ideas in this book were implemented in a more intuitive way, however, reading this book was a boost I didn't think I could give - From designing the slides and back to the drawing board, this book sharpned every and each aspect of my lectures.

I have had a weathered copy of Khalil Gibran's The Prophet for over 20 years. I don't even know where I got it, but it has followed me through many moves and survived multiple garage sales. I read it often.

Presentation Zen is that kind of book. Everything about it feels good. It looks beautiful. It is clearly written and engaging. Just the other day I was asked to give a talk, and I picked it up and turned to the section on preparation. It told me exactly what I needed to do and changed my mood from worried about what I was going to present to excited about sharing a simple, strong and meaningful message with my audience.

Consulting in Silicon Valley for many years, I saw some pretty awful PowerPoint slides. I even started a collection which I deemed "The Gallery of Horror" because they were so glaringly hideous that they were comical.

Sure, some were bad because of the color choice, or terrible charts, or 30 8-point bullets on one slide. But the one thing they all shared that made them so punishing is that they had zero regard for the audience. If the person who created them had spent one second thinking "I wonder what my audience is truly interested in hearing about today?" and not "How am I going to jam all of my ideas onto this one slide?", they never would have seen the light of the projector.

Thank God Garr spent his time and energy on this book. Just maybe it will gather enough weight and credibility as it climbs the bestseller charts to push back the tidal wave of pressure to spew information rather than gently converse.

Do you have a passion for presenting? Are you already feed deep in Blogs like Presentation Zen, Great Public Speaking and Guy Kawasaki's How To Change The World? Have you read the book Give Your Speech, Change The World by Nick Morgan or Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson? If so, my guess is you're also probably hunched over your iPod watching all of the TED Talks and the Pop! Tech presentations (we can learn the most by watching others do it).

If not, there's a solution.

Presentation Zen - Simples Ideas On Presentation Design And Delivery. In what could have easily turned into a "what you should (and should not) do with PowerPoint or Keynote," is actually a fantastic read that has more gems about how to win business, get others to understand your message, and foster a passion for belief in what you're trying to accomplish in your business life than technical rules about what a presentation should have from a design and content perspective. Yes, Presentation Zen has the obligatory before and after slides to illustrate how simplicity, opening up the slide, removing (and aligning) text and images creates a better presentation, but the big takeaway is really everything that comes before you open up your presentation software package.

Presentation Zen wins as a must-have book for every Marketer because the best insights come from Garr's perspective on uncovering your own creativity, how to plan a presentation, how to craft the story (and even how to find the story) along with great concepts on story boards and core presentation skill principles. Garr spends a chunk of time writing about how the concepts from the book, Made To Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive And Other Die, by Chip and Dan Heath are core to a successful presentation. Presentation Zen is superbly organized, clear and has tons of key Marketing insights.

A book on presentations with key Marketing insights? How so?

Delivering a message in a crowded world is no easy task. With big-budget special effects in movies and whiz-bang technology like the iPhone, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to provide a solid message in a clear fashion. If presenting is not your forte, or if you think your Marketing efforts don't need to reflect on this specific skill-set, Presentation Zen still provides fundamental messages on how to craft your story (brand) and how to deliver it in a way that gets attention. All Marketers need to constantly reflect on that.

Here's one quick tip from Presentation Zen that really struck home: start with a notepad and pencil. Sketch out the story, and story board the slides (I even picked up the Moleskin Story Board Notebook) - if you can't draw it out, odds are it will be too confusing as a slide anyway. Presentation Zen is filled with gifts about how to get better at presenting. I highly recommend grabbing a copy for yourself and anyone else in your company who needs to stand up in front of people and sell something (be it an idea or product).

Like many others, I have grown (very) weary of the so-called "death by PowerPoint" culture which saturates the IT sector in which I work. I would gladly substitute every minute of mindless suffering sitting through too many presentations by sales persons and various "engineers" with 150% more time at the Dentist's. Much as I hate visiting my Dentist, at least I'll be healthier afterwards.

Also like many others, I wager, I found out about Presentation Zen the book from Presentation Zen the blog of which I am a fan. I am sorry to report that I am a bigger fan of the blog than I am of the book. First, the good.

The book itself is pleasing with good binding and great color. It's easy to read with clear type and an attractive layout. Chapter heading and sub-headings are clear and the flow of the book's content is harmonious. The reader can tell that good quality work went into the typesetting and publishing--kudos to New Riders.

How about content? Well here a few shortcomings appear and although not enough to dismiss the book outright are enough to cause me wonder. At 230 odd pages, the first impression as I flipped through is how "light" it is, literally and metaphorically. There is a surprising amount of white space and while that's understandable from a design perspective, from a reader's however, it falls short of fulfilling the promise of content a similarly priced book should deliver on.

Focused reading reveals surprisingly little that is original. I stopped counting at 12 the number of books by other authors referenced and quoted from; and while that isn't a crime per se, it's certainly a shortcoming. At best, it looks like Reynolds did a great job of editing, creating a pastiche of content from other authors and the reader might as well do the same thing: amass a large enough library and perform the acquisition of knowledge himself. That, at least, comes with the advantage that reader will be getting it wholesale from the source instead of the Presentation Zen précis.

There is some practical and usable advice (start with analog brainstorming then proceed to the digital, keep the lights on, use a remote) but it's inadequately fleshed out. This information is better presented and with a heightened emphasis on practicality in other books--Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson comes to mind, one of the many cited as reference for further instruction.

A possible defense to the accusation of being light is that Reynolds' wrote the book, as the subtitle hints, as more of a philosophical treatise on presentation design. Fine, but even then, it's still light on those points as well. Reynolds is content to regurgitate some Japanese aphorisms and quotes from various personages that, while certainly inspirational, possess little value beyond that. The book ends up reading like a "pop psychology" cheer leading tome than what it means to be: a book instructing on presenting information to an audience.

Some of the subtext I noticed from reading is that Reynolds is a dye in the wool fan of Apple products with little if any regard for PC and PC software (from Windows to PowerPoint) including them as an afterthought, perhaps to sell more books. There is also a subtle but discernable thread of condescension toward American society--the number of "fat" Americans appearing in example slides started getting a little tired after a while. I don't know if this was purposeful and I doubt it, but nevertheless it's there.

The latter section of the book truly runs out of steam replete as it is with examples (with little to no analysis of them) filling page after page of slideware. It peters out with some feel-good advice from the author about creativity, etc. in what felt like padding.

In summary, Presentation Zen owes its existence (with apologies to Isaac Newton) to standing on the shoulders of giants on which it stands. Amazon has it for sale at a great price so definitely get it from here. Otherwise, there's no way I see of plunking down full price for this book at your local bookstore.

Like everyone else that reviewed this book, I found it to be superb. Not only the ideas; but the presentation, examples, and resources provided make it a must-read. My only criticism is that the author includes what I believe to be a disproportionate quantity of presentation material that highlights how overweight we are in the US - I don't need a lecture about my weight from another crunchy ex-pat, even if it is indirect. Sometimes zen comes from being happy with who you are and not subscribing to what others want us to be.

Not only is Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen "required reading" for presenters, Garr and New Riders have teamed up to reaffirm the fact that quality still matters in book publishing today. For little more than the cost of a quickly outdated, prosaically-produced black and white, "rehashed-content" book, Presentation Zen delivers a memorable and impeccably-produced visual treat.

Presentation Zen does more than live up to its subtitle, "Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery." A series of essays and visual images, Presentation Zen delivers a new perspective and set of tools for presentation success. In simple language, and with numerous examples, translates ageless Far Eastern teachings into lessons that belong in today's conference rooms and on webinar screens.

The book succeeds because the content and layout practice what it preaches; focus, simplicity, and relevant visuals. It's a provocative book that calms the senses while engaging, teaching, and inspiring. Numerous before and after examples drive home its lessons, and there are links to numerous online examples of successful presentations to further explore.

Presentation Zen could easily have been an intellectual digression or novelty; instead it is a handbook with a well-organized perspective and specific tips any presenter, new or experienced, can learn from and apply.

If you ever have given or will give a PowerPoint presentation, you must read this book. This is a book which I wish was written 20 years ago.

Presentation Zen offers a philosophy regarding presentations that is stunningly simple on its surface but at the same time very implementable. PowerPoint is currently being used in the manner in which it was designed, which is the principal problem.

Many of us have had our minds drift off through countless hours and hours of bullets and small fonts as opposed to really deriving the true value of human communications.

The marriage of Zen concepts and communications is extraordinarily powerful. Garr Reynolds' writing style is very informative, applicable and provides excellent examples of meaningful communication.

These days even grammar school children are being taught to use PowerPoint in the same ineffective manner that it has traditionally been used.

I have always felt tremendous differences in the power of presentations by Seth Godin and Tom Peters. This book explains why.

I will have multiple copies of this book to distribute to my work associates and friends as appropriate. Ignore this book at your own risk.

This is an exceptional book about each of the steps involved in preparing and delivering a great presentation. It's also very well written, and a pleasure to read, not just once, but also to consult. Furthermore - one can also say it's a metaphor for how to approach projects that are not straightforward and require a lot of thinking and preparation to figure out what's the best "solution". One suggestion, however, it would be great if the author (or someone else) would tackle the ingrained "slideuments" (name coined by Garr Reynolds) tradition which appears to totally dominate business presentations.