Presentation Zen

Counter-Counter point, those studies were not of very high quality. Very small groups, and the “hard to read font” was Comic Sans which isn’t actually hard to read, just different. Also, Comic Sans is well known to be the butt of all font jokes, which could have been acting as some kind of marker for the content. A lot for variable unaccounted for. On the other hand, the author of OPs “beginners’ guide” treats presentations like a brochure, which is in itself a beginners’ mistake. If you want to provide truly *excellent* advice to a beginner, point them to Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule, you cannot really go wrong with that - yes, it is geared towards pitching for VCs but the approach makes sense regardless. For a bit more of an in-depth approach, see this dude: https://www.presentationzen.com

These resources may help. All effort you put into better communications will pay you back for the rest of your life. This is the single most critical general skill for success. Good luck. Smart Brevity (Absolutely love this one! From the founders of Axios News. Also a TEDx talk.) The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (excellence for presenting). The McKinsey Way (Good info on structuring material. TED Talk: 4 Steps to Communicate Anything Clearly, according to a Scientist who teaches quantum physics to kids. [1] Presentation Zen blog, videos and book. [2] [1] https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/4-steps-to-communicate-anything-clearl… [2] https://www.presentationzen.com/

Garr Reynolds has an excellent blog about giving great, bullet point free Presentations: http://www.presentationzen.com/ His book, Presentation Zen, comes highly recommended (not a referral link): http://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Zen-Simple-Delivery-Edition/dp/0321…

I have not read it myself (yet), but Garr Reynolds (http://www.presentationzen.com/) recommends this one "Brenda Ueland: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit". Maybe that helps.

I guess it is not a coincidence, but just in case that you don't know it already, patio11 is giving a talk at a presentation group we have here called "Design Matters", at the Osaka Shinsaibashi Apple Store. It will be great. Check out http://designmatters.jp/ This group was initiated by Garr Raynolds of http://www.presentationzen.com/ but Garr became very busy, so since last year, together with another guy we run the show.

http://www.presentationzen.com/ might just be your new best friend.

I found the embedded slides didn't work for me, so here's a non-embedded link to the same slides: http://www.slideshare.net/cheilmann/the-road-to-being-a-kickass-publis… I'm a big fan of: (1) encouraging techies to take and make opportunities to present publicly; and, (2) improving the quality of the presentation in terms of supporting material and presentation styles. In the past I've found sites like Presentation Zen (http://www.presentationzen.com/) to be really helpful for improving the quality of my presentations. I'm no Lawrence Lessig but here's part of a presentation I did last year at DEFCON: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XotF9FyiAZc (Self-critique: still need to work on reducing the "ahhs". :) ) Also, like most things, improvement takes time: for many of my earlier presentations I just used a vertically scrolled single HTML page for my "slides"--it did the job and allowed me to concentrate more on the content. Nowadays when I actually manage to finish the content earlier than the night before I can put more time into increasing the production values. (Incidentally, I think the DEFCON videos from last year are possibly the best layout for post-event videos I've seen with legible slides and decent sized speaker view.)

I think the idea is good, I don't doubt that the content and research may be good, but I do have an issue with someone whose credentials are "During high school and college I've done several presentations". I consider myself comfortable and relatively good at presenting and I've presented in front of a few thousand professional peers before but I wouldn't for a moment conclude that I am qualified to run an online course on presenting. If you don't have experience trying the tips and techniques you recommend or a wealth of knowledge from observing others use them I'm going to have my doubts. Please don't get me wrong, I think its a worthy cause and something you can make money off of but to my fellow HN reader, I'd recommend a site like http://www.presentationzen.com/ for advice on presenting. On a side note, one of my favorite presentation guidelines is the TED commandments for anyone who's interested.

(A) Presentation Zen both the book (that came out recently) and the blog: http://www.presentationzen.com/ and Beyond Bullet Points, http://beyondbulletpoints.com/ the book and online seminars. Yes, both of them are primarily focused on "static" presentations, however the focus on the telling a good story through your demonstration is the point. In presenting Krugle at DEMO06 (and winning a DEMOGod award, woohoo!), the biggest failing we saw in many of the other presentations was the fact that the "story" was a confusing, convoluted mess. (B) Spend a lot more time building and practicing your presentations/demonstrations than you think. Video yourself is great if you can do it but just standing up and actually running through the entire presentation/demo repeatedly goes a long ways. (C) For online/web demos, I always build a completely usable, static presentation (in Keynote/PowerPoint) using lots of e.g., diagrams and screenshots so that the presentation still works for the audience even if the network/server is down/slow. (D) Have a personality -- and bend it towards your audience. I.e., a presentation needs to be engaging/interesting to the audience. I.e., think at least as much about entertaining (in the best possible way) as you do about being e.g., informative. (E) Have fun! Hope this helps, John

When I see advices like this, I always remember Garr Reynolds [1] PresentationZen and, above all, Guy Kawasaki's rule of 10/20/30 [2] A pitch should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. [1] https://www.presentationzen.com/ [2] https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/

> 4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. This one reminds me of writing advice from South Park's Trey Parker: write better stories by figuring out how to replace all your "ands" and "buts" with "therefore". http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2015/05/the-key-to-stor… > 20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? This one strikes me as an especially great idea! Rewrite something bad to make it good. There are certainly some shows I've bitched about (like a lot of people) but I would have a hard time dissecting it to find what's wrong with it, and even harder time fixing it. Having to do it would certainly be educational.

Somethings are better without powerpoint-like presentation, but is possible to use it correctly. I have used the ideas behind http://www.presentationzen.com/ with good results. Based on that, my mom setup a service to build that kind of presentations at http://www.emilypresenta.com/ (the site is in spanish for now), including finding, buying the photos/icons and the provide a basic layout for the talking part.

Good old Presentation Zen. I didn't even know that they still exist. That article is from 2005 and as such somewhat outdated. Bill Gates has been giving quite a few great presentations after he left Microsoft (for example: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2005/11/the_zen_estheti… and even Microsoft's presentations have improved, well, at least visually. Steve Ballmer is just no Steve Jobs. Edit: Oh, Presentation Zen has also written about Gates' transformation recently: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/08/the-naked-trans…

I suggest tuning into Presentation Zen on a regular basis. http://www.presentationzen.com/

My hearing was ACTUALLY permanently damaged when a sticky iron weight fell on a leg press machine at a 24-hour fitness about 5 years ago. The weights looked like these: http://www.presentationzen.com/.a/6a00d83451b64669e201156eb409b4970c-4… One extra weight slab was "stuck" to the group that was supposed to get lifted. It was stuck because the weights at the gym were grimy from many years of use without being cleaned. The extra slab, when it reached the top, finally detached and slid down maybe 20-30 inches, and made a sound that everyone in the gym heard, but right next to my ear. A few people even made angry faces at me for being a noisy lifter. Ever since then, to this day, I have had tinnitus in that ear, and many sounds come in like "static", for lack of a better explanation. All I can say is be careful with those weights if they get sticky, and if they are near your ear...

Unfortunately for this author, his text isn't sufficient to inform nor persuade. To use one of the most tired quotes of all time, a poor craftsman blames their tools. I've seen incredible powerpoint/keynote presentations. Steve Jobs has made them legendary. Others like Lessig have, to a much smaller audience, made similar impact. Likewise I go to schoolboard meetings where no slides of any sort are used and you realize 15 minutes in you have no idea what they're talking about. You look around and everyone is on their smartphones. Standing in front of an audience spouting numbers and school and budgets for 30 minutes with no visual assistance is painful. See http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2005/10/the_lessig_meth… for how some people use slides.

"Presentationzen" by Garr Reynolds and "Slide:ology" by Nancy Duarte will be exceedingly helpful to you. Here are links to their blogs and Amazon descriptions. Good luck! http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321525655/103-6148611-3957463?ie=UTF… http://blog.duarte.com/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596522347?ie=UTF8&tag=slideology… You should also find a copy of Guy Kawasaki's "Reality Check" or "The art of the start". Even if you don't have enough time to push through the whole book, just read the chapter on pitching. Should be very helpful.

the link for this is not working, most likely a copy and paste issue. the real URL is below http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/08/the-creativity-…

> I've always wondered what it was with publicizing sheets instead of a talk. Laziness, mostly. Slides are a printable material and less effort to publish than a transcription or a full article write-up. > Didn't I get taught in school every year for the past decade that sheets are supposed to support the material I'm talking about and should not say much on their own? I wasn't aware people were actually teaching decent presentation skills. They certainly weren't while I was pushing for them. But yes, this is correct. But it's important to recognize that "correct" isn't good enough. If you need to cater to people like CamperBob2 in the sibling comment, you need to structure your existence around his schedule so that he isn't inconvenienced by a desire to know what you want to convey. http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2005/06/using_annotated… http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/04/handouts_can_…