Slide:ology: The best book on preparing presentations I've seen

[Davin Granroth]

Yesterday, lost in a Barnes & Noble, I luckily picked up "Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations" by Nancy Duarte. Who's she? Beats me, but the book rocks.

Too often presentations get caught up in the gee-whiz of the technology. Doesn't it seem like PowerPoint and its ilk set us up to create BORING presentations? Just because we can use a decaying slide transition, doesn't mean we should! If only each new slide started was a blank slate instead of a bullet point tricking us into some thin, pedantic sentence fragment.

Lose the technology! Start with pencils, pens, sticky notes, white boards: something analog, something dialogue.

As someone who grudgingly agrees with Tufte's scathing critique of PowerPoint, this book is a breath of fresh air.

The chapter titles speak. Here are two of them.
Chapter 2: Creating Ideas, Not Slides
Chapter 5: Thinking Like a Designer

Two Fridays from now I'll present an analysis from a round of user research. This book has re-inspired me: I'll apply some good slideology.

[Karen Bachmann]

Thanks for sharing this book. It sounds like a great resource for anyone creating presentations--most of us, I'd bet. Another resource on this topic that I recommend that made me rethink my approach to the designing presentations is "Presenting to Small Audiences," a ChangeThis manifesto.

[Davin Granroth]

Thanks. I just read through "Presenting to Small Audiences." Great perspective! The author of that manifesto actually referenced the author of Slide:ology in his writing. Connections.