Joel Hewlett

Zen and the Art of Slide Design Effective communications and slide presentations may seem like mutually exclusive ideas, but slides are an inescapable part of agency and corporate life. Its great fun to beat up on PowerPoint, and much has been written on how bad so many presentations are. Often people approach this problem by becoming better at PowerPoint, but thats not the answer. The antidote comes instead in a new book from one of the masters of presentation design, Garr Reynolds. Garrs Presentation Zen, published by New Riders, should become an industry bible on the topic of simplifying presentations for better communications. Garrs blog of the same name is the worlds most popular presentation design blog, and is a great resource for communicators. When I was at Hewlett-Packard, I hired Garr to present to a group of about 40 executive and internal communications professionals. Im not exaggerating when I say that Garr inspired the group to fundamentally change the way slides were done in our organization, leading to much more effective and engaging executive presentations. And thats really the crux of good slide design. Inspiration. Zen is as much a philosophy as it is a religion, and the same is true for good slide design. Presentation Zen is not a how-to in the traditional sense. Garr is quick to point out that simplistic rules like the 1-7-7 Rule, which suggests one main idea per slide seven lines of text maximum(and) seven words per line maximum, still produce awful slides. Garr once told me that simplicity involved removal of everything but the essential. So Presentation Zen is a how-to, but it is about how to adopt a philosophy that will help you simplify to create better communications. Which is HARD. I usually dont bother looking at the foreword when I read a book, but Presentation Zen is an exception, featuring some words, and slides, from Guy Kawasaki, and what I think is one of the most important messages of all: Good slides should enhance a live talk; slides are not meant to tell the whole story without you there. Too often the whole story is in the slides, either because of the idea that the slides have to stand alone to become a leave-behind (NO, dont do it!) or because of a weak presenter or a presenter who does not know the material. Garr writes about another problem, the slideument. A slideument is a slide into which is pasted a large amount of information, such as an Excel spreadsheet. These are not slides, but documents in slide form. I worked at one company that overcame admonitions to limit your presentation to 12 slides by pasting four miniature slides into each full-sized slide. This is the slide that the presenter always introduces with the caveat, Im sorry for the eye chart So why would a presenter use a slide he/she already knows is ineffective? Garr offers all kinds of practical tips throughout the book, like: You dont need your logo on every slide 3D graphs detract from the simplified display of information Empty space on a slide is OK The book is beautifully illustrated and printed (as a design book ought to be.) Youll be pleased that there are no instructions for how to better use PowerPoint or Apples Keynote. The problem with previous books on presentation is that they are about how to use the tools, not about how to make better slides. In this regard, Presentation Zen is groundbreaking, and I think it belongs on the bookshelf of every PR professional and corporate communicator. Joel Postman is the principal of Socialized, a consultancy that helps companies make effective use of social media in corporate communications, marketing, and public relations. His background includes a decade of Fortune 500 corporate communications leadership, four years as the speechwriter to the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and experience in print and broadcast news. He is currently working on a book, titled SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate, to be published in November. You may also find articles by Joel at the TalentZoo.com website under Very Public Relations. Article from articlesbase.com More Design Inspiration Articles Tags: Design, Slide Related posts Your Ad Here Hotel Design Magazine July August 2008 (0) Your Ad Here Cancun & The Yucatan (Full Colour Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides) (0) Young Dynamic Pattern (0) You Can Make Money Online If You Sell Templates (0) Xerox Alto (0)

Four Hewlett-Packard board people who reportedly performed a middle part in your companys choice about regardless of whether to replace CEO Mark Hurd are on their own becoming replaced, HP announced Thursday soon after U.S. fiscal marketplaces closed. Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany will not be up for re-election once the [...]

Splice exclusive premiere photos of Adrien Brody, Delphine Chaneac, Robert Downey Jr, David Hewlett, Vincenzo Natali, Joel Silver, Mehcad Brooks, Tony Hawk, Simon Rex, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Kenny G. Splice premiere pictures featuring Delphine Chaneac, Robert Downey Jr, David Hewlett, Vincenzo Natali, Joel Silver, Mehcad Brooks, Tony Hawk, Simon

Reduced Instruction Set Computers are a new approach to speeding up computer processing. Guests: Joel Birnbaum, Hewlett Packard; David Patterson, UC Berkeley; Frank King, IBM; Hugh Martin, Ridge Computers; Jan Lewis, Palo Alto Research Group; George Morrow, Morrow Computing; Nickolas Dunckel, TRW Products/Demos: HP Spectrum” This video is from the

California is God's best moment," says Joel Kotkin. "It's the best place in the world ... Think Intel, Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Now, however, the Golden State's fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape.

His work for SGU was atmospheric, epic and emotional. A true artist." "So sad to hear about Joel Goldsmith," said "Stargate: Atlantis'" David Hewlett, who played Dr. Rodney McKay. "His music made our adventures throughout the Stargates truly magnificent.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY: Joe Weinman is Sr. VP of Cloud Services & Strategy at Telx ... He joined Telx with over 30 years of experience in executive leadership positions at AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, and Bell Laboratories, in areas such as corporate strategy, business ...

“Fox News Sunday” also welcomes Joel and Victoria Osteen ... Paul Krugman of The New York Times, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and David Walker, founder and ...

At Hewlett Packard, he was responsible for building its networking ... Sales for the Western U.S. that was previously held by Joe Goldsmith, who was recently appointed as Vice President and General Manager for Digital Realty's Colocation ...

Hewlett-Packard today announced a series of open source-based ... deployment of network management policies that are customized to specific applications. Joe Skorupa, a data center analyst for Gartner, says HP is making "a significant step forward in ...

Joel Chernoff is CEO of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America ... Tooley says the proposal specifically focuses on three companies: Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola. The UMC's General Conference begins Tuesday (April 24) in Tampa.

"Leading companies, particularly in business-to-consumer industries, have recognized the importance of tapping into customer-to-customer communications and engaging in these social conversations," said Joe Outlaw ... Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard ...

Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and a contributing editor to the City Journal. For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Hewlett-Packard has released its report on top security risks ... “The PC has trained us to click through everything,” said Joe Chen, director of engineering for Symantec’s security technology and response organization.