Advanced Presentation by Design: the Book
Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication that Drives Action, by Dr. Andrew Abela.
Available from Amazon.com. For bulk orders, go to 800CEO-READ.
Updates:
December 31, 2008: Advanced Presentations by Design makes the Top 25: What Corporate America Is Reading list for December, 2008 at CEO-READ.
January 5, 2009: hits CEO-READ's Daily Top 5, in spot #3.
All your hard work—your ideas, your research, your plans, your effort—comes to nothing if you cannot convince others to act on it. The way we get people to act in organizations today is to make a presentation. And yet the quality—and the effectiveness—of the average presentation today is abysmal. We are all afflicted by a plague of “Death by PowerPoint™” and, seemingly, we do not know what to do about it. There is plenty of advice on how to create presentations, but it is this very advice that caused the plague in the first place, and so following it will not provide the cure.
This book overturns much of the conventional wisdom and practice of creating presentations to provide a comprehensive and yet easy-to-use ten-step method for designing presentations that propel your audience to action. This method is focused exclusively on designing your presentations, not on delivering them, for the simple reason that if your content is not interesting and persuasive in itself, then most likely you have lost the game before you even begin presenting. The ten-step method shows you how to take your ideas and information and turn them into a compelling set of slides. The method is supported by hundreds of empirical studies on different aspects relevant to presentation, and it has been field-tested among leading corporations, including Dell, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Kimberly-Clark, Motorola, and eBay.
The book is divided into five parts, covering the five essential dimensions of an effective presentation: politics (audience analysis and persuasion), metrics (objectives and success measurement), logic (argument and evidence), rhetoric (storytelling), and graphics (visuals). Each of the parts contains an introduction to explain why that dimension is important. The individual chapters then contain material that explains how to implement each of the ten steps in the method. The first page of each chapter gives an overview of the step, so if you are in a hurry you can just read the first page of each chapter and obtain a quick overview of the method.
Endorsements for Advanced Presentations by Design. "Without doubt, Advanced Presentations by Design is the best researched book on presentation design that I’ve ever had the privilege of reading. I recommend it for those of you who want the confidence of knowing how best to plan and design successful presentations." Gene Zelazny, author of Say It With Charts and Say It With Presentations. "Like much of what goes on inside organizations, those ubiquitous presentations have a look and feel based more on custom and what others do than on the evidence of what works best. In this practical and evidence-based book, Andrew Abela has outlined a set of principles that will make your presentations more memorable and persuasive." Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford Business School, and co-author of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management. "This book is essential for any executive that doesn't have time to wade through 60-page PowerPoint decks. You will want to make this book required reading for all your staff!" Stew McHie, Global Brand Manager, Exxon-Mobil. "Whether as a manager or university lecturer, we are only as effective as the buy-in we get. This marvellous book should be required reading for all managers and educators. I was embarrassed to see my own failings written up in cold print." Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow, London Business School, and author of Marketing and the Bottom Line. "If you could turn your typical 30-page PowerPoint presentation into one effective page that comprehensively states your case, engages your audience, and generates the results you want, would you do it? This book shows you how." Hedy Lukas, Vice President, Integrated Marketing Communication, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. "Dr. Abela's 10-step process leads you through a logical approach to presentation development so that your audiences hear your message with absolute clarity. It will change the way you practice!" Nancy L. Losben, R.Ph., CCP, FASCP, Chief Quality Officer, Omnicare, Inc. "If even half the strategy and market intelligence functions among the Fortune 500 took Dr. Abela's advice, corporate productivity would take a huge step forward. He brings together tried and true disciplines in such a unique way, that anyone who wants to stay on top of their game will welcome this playbook." Craig Albright, Vice President, Finance—Xerox Global Services, Xerox Corporation. "Dr. Abela's book will give you the skills and a comprehensive and methodical approach that will be instrumental to going beyond being a mere purveyors of data to a trusted advisor." J. David Phillips, Group Manager, Market Intelligence and Planning, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Microsoft Corporation. "Dr. Abela expertly weaves all elements together-the audience, the story, the presentation of the story-and backs it up with reams of research from all disciplines." Karen L. Fuller, former Director, Global Brand Research, Dell Inc. "Dr. Abela's book will give you a structured approach—which our whole company now uses—to more easily prepare impressive presentations whether for important client meetings or small internal meetings. Having the Extreme Presentation method in our arsenal enables us to provide higher value to our clients." Denis McFarlane, CEO and Founder, Infinitive Corporation. "What makes this book different from other books on presentation design is that it weaves the importance of telling a powerful story throughout the ten-step process of presentation development. I guarantee you will achieve success if you follow the approach outlined in this book." Lori Silverman, author and editor of Wake Me Up When the Data is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Achieve Results, and co-author of Stories Trainers Tell.