If you are remotely interested in delivering talks, you have to at least have a look at Presentation Zen, the book.

Presentation Zen is not a book about Powerpoint or Keynote. It is more a book about the attitude Garr Reynolds encourages us to take when approaching a presentation.

The book has five large parts. The Introduction talks about the state of today’s presentations and makes the case for a new approach: the Presentation Zen approach.

Part 2 talks about Preparation discussing issues on creativity and constraints and on crafting the story. I particularly liked the advice of going analog to plan the story, rather than directly jumping on filling slides.

Part 3 delves into Design issues. When it comes to the design of visual aids, Garr argues for simplicity and draws parallels with Zen aesthetics. I liked the discussion on the use of white space and on elimination of graphical noise. Several slide samples are provided, most of which you can find on slideshare.net.

Part 4 deals with the actual Delivery. It starts with more a general discussion about being present and on connecting to the audience, and it ends with hands-on tips on how to do that. For example, Garr urges us to go away from the podium and to use a remote control to advance slides.

The final part opens the door beyond the book and towards The Next Step. How will you approach your next presentation? This is completely up to you.

This book came out of the presentationzen.com, a blog filled with helpful pointers and insightful posts on presentation design and delivery. While the blog is detailed, the book is much more lightweight and in comparison the book can be viewed as rather shallow.

However, the goal of the book was not to fully inform, but rather to provide us with incentives to take a fresh look on our presentations. And, I believe that if you only have a couple of hours to invest in your presentation skills, this book is a very good starting point.

p.s. Garr also gave a talk (71 min) on the book as part of the Authors @ Google series: