Presentations Books

I knew nothing about PowerPoint when I picked up this book. After going through the easy to follow lessons over several days, I became VERY proficient using the software. I'm not only proficient, but able to get results and use techniques FAR beyond my actual experience.

The only criticism I have is that the book is in need of editing for spelling, grammar and punctuation!! Also, a couple of examples/lessons need to be clarified. Despite that, I still give the book a 5 star rating. It accomplishes it's mission and then some!

If there were ever a better use for "must have," I would really like to meet the person arguing the case as it is applied to an introduction to PowerPoint presentation creation.

And like the definition of "truth" itself, (truth is simple, ubiquitous and eternal) the "must have" is not limited to a new comer but to old timers as well.

I should know. I have been a graphics' specialist since the earliest days of my accounting curriculum major when I wanted to express the numbers as a pie and as a bar chart and had to labor for hours with marking pencils. rulers, and press-on type (not to mention calculators, allocation formulas and such). That was while as a high school student, I had a winning Science Fair project on the effect of heat and light on the eating characteristics of guppies--something that today, probably only a cat would appreciate.

Yes, there are many reasons to present. And not all of us have the luxury of 30 years of desire and hard work to call upon when placed in the spot of having to do it quickly. So, that is the "what" of the author's book.

The what this book is about is the hands-on experience of the author being made real in type. From the opening intro on the three key elements of all presentations being "How the presentation is shown," "How the presentation looks," and "How the presentation reveals the content," the substance of the book is distilled.

But the remarkableness of the book is the author's keen ability to delve into the matters that really matter.

First up is the "down-and-dirty doing of a presentation" that is kept fast paced, clear and to the point (almost angelic and certainly worthy of a cat's meow}.

The author cites his own "Reilly's Laws" on key issues. These issues (seldom referred to by most PowerPoint authors) are insightfully useful.

A case in point is the instance of having to present on a screen (where people in the back of the room can only read the type that is 20 points and larger) and yet provide the material in printed form as well. One of Reilly's Laws state: "Expect the worst, and you'll never be disappointed." Reilly explains, "You have to execute this presentation anticipating the worst-case scenario." Continuing, "Use nothing less than 20-point type." Reilly concludes, "The reader of the screen version will be happy, and the reader of the paper version will be able to read it without glasses."

The worst would be a screen version where the type is too small to be read by those in the back of the room.

Communication is the operative issue. As Reilly notes, "If the communication is not effective, it is a poor presentation no matter how fancy or cool the techniques are."

And the doing of techniques are not overlooked (as is often the case in more than half of all presentations). Reilly covers the bases of scanning pictures, incorporating sounds and movie files as well as using tables, graphs and org charts. But not just by stating how to insert them as another kind of object. Reilly delves deeper into these objects to once again help the creator stop or foresee the glitches in what he/she is doing or would like to do.

After all is stated, Brian Reilly has a vested interest beyond your purchase of his book. As a highly valued contributor to the Microsoft newsgroup of Microsoft PowerPoint and in the CompuServe forum on PowerPoint , Brian Reilly makes time to answer users in their momentary PowerPoint usage dilemmas.

Read his book today, and you will be better able to keep the graphics' doctor away. Here's to your health and to your keeping the good times rolling!

Lewis Gudmundsen
Microsoft PowerPoint End-user MVP

Owner
Gudmundsen & Company, LLC
lewis@mymail.com

You need this book if you want to understand where our design-obsessive culture originated. Even if you don't give a rat's ass, if you take any kind of enjoyment from visual and conceptual aesthetics, you still need this.

It is great to flip through, the ultimate coffee table book. But suprisingly, there is just as much emphasis placed on text and context.

Even more surprisingly, it is reasonably priced.

Peter Saville has enormous talent and is unique in that he's not strictly a designer, not strictly an artist.

Beyond that, the AIDA approach to business writing is clear and easy to use once students get the hang of it. My students' major project is to work with an organization in solving a communication problem, they are responsible for writing memos and reports to both the client and me.

However, I guess that the biggest endorsement is the number of students who do not resell this book at the end of the semester. I have had several tell me that this is one of the few books that they will take with them when they graduate because they view it as a good reference book.

There's excellent material on how to organize and write a speech, followed by 100 important things you need to know about giving an effective speech . . . I also liked the author's collection of "best" quotations, along with his compilation of 365 ideas relating to historical dates and events that can be weaved into your speech . . . best of all: he shows you how!

Here's just some of the material that caught my attention:
A baseball legend's rules for a long life
Satchel Paige, a famous baseball pitcher of indeterminate age, once offered his rules for a long life:
* Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.
* If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
* Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
* Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social rumble ain't restful.
* Avoid running at all times.
* Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.
I'd like to add another rule onto that list. And that one is: Avoid speaking to a group for more than 10 minutes. A long talk might anger up the audience's blood. So today, let me--very briefly--talk about . . .

Use Elvis . . . he always gets a laugh
Well, I know you have to be very cautious about making predictions. Especially when you predict where things are going to be five years from now. For example, in 1973, there were 457 Elvis impersonators in America. In 1993, there were 2,736 Elvis impersonators in America. If this trend continues, by the year 2000 one out of four Americans will be an Elvis impersonator.

Tip O'Neill, US Congressman and former speaker of the House of
Representatives, enjoyed telling the story of the only election he ever lost. As a very young man, he ran for the city council in his hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts. After his defeat, the elderly lady who lived next door said she had voted for him even though he had never bothered to ask for her vote. O'Neill was surprised. He pointed out that he had shoveled her snow every winter. Cut her grass every summer. Couldn't he just assume that he had her vote? But the woman just looked at him and said: "Tip, people like to be asked."