I’m wild about a brand new, beautiful, and absolutely brilliant book on how to create memorable visuals for presentations.  It’s called Presentation Zen, Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, by Garr Reynolds (New Riders, 2008).

You only have to flip through the pages to immediately grasp Reynold’s provocative mix of inspiration and practical guidance.  As a presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert, he shows how  thoughtfully designed, graceful, efficient visual imagery can make you look good as a presenter.  He has of the most popular Web sites on presentation design and delivery on the net — www.presentationzen.com.

The book is filled page after page of examples of how creativity, photos, large size font, and cool graphics can transform your PowerPoint from dull to dynamite.  Just one example - picture this - the slide on the left shows a full page photo of a runner slogging through the desert with a simple message - Less than 33% of U.S. adults are at a “healthy weight.”  Not bad.  But the slide on the right? It shows the midsection only of an overweight man grabbing his belly fat, with the caption in large print: 66% of Americans are obsese or overweight; below that a simple chart on the numbers of all adults, women and men.  It’s so much more memorable!

Garr Reynolds is a writer, designer and musician who currently holds the position of  Associate Professor of Management at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan. http://www.kansaigaidai.ac.jp/asp/

 Hence, his zen-way of seeing things.

His real message: Simplicity Rules.

How good is it?  Seth Godin  http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/ the marketing guru of gurus quips, “Please don’t buy this book! Once people start making better presentations, mine won’t look so good.”

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Media mogul Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines (Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar and O), www.hearst.com  spoke to the same New York conference I mentioned in an earlier post — the National Speaker’s Association www.nsaspeaker.org.  Her closing keynote was a light, breezy affair, where she shared a few tales from her guide to career and life, Basic Black (Crown Business 2007) available at www.amazon.com  

 While she didn’t win a lot of points for her presentation style ( virtually glued to a script that by now you’d think she’d have memorized) — she connected with  her charm and earnest advice. 

It’s funny, but something (Cathie Black) said stuck with me.  While it is now Friday afternoon, and her speech waas on Monday morning, it’s still in my head:

“Happiness has more to do with success, than success has to do with happiness.”

Now whether you agree, or whether you think it’s a little too sentimental, the point is this — it’s memorable.  And for every speaker, that’s one of the tests - if your audience can remember it hours or days later, the message has staying power.  Try it out.  Test a message - on your own staff - and see if they remember it the next time you get together.

As you probably know, Black was one of the first women to take a major role in American magazine and newspaper publishing. She came to Hearst by way of New York magazine, where she was the first woman publisher of a weekly consumer magazine, and USA Today, which she helped build from a small upstart into one of the country’s most widely read daily papers.

So she’s no stranger to the world of words - and we can all take a page out of her book.  Don’t be afraid to keep the message simple.  

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This weekend at the National Speakers Association convention in New York, www.nsaspeaker.org Steve Forbes took the stage.  He had 1,800 professional speakers on the edge of their seats as he shared his insights about the future of the US economy.  Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes, and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com as well as a former Republican candidate for President, can actually be a little awkward on stage, yet people who get paid a lot of money to speak to corporate audiences were mezmerized; in a room full of people who love to talk, you could hear a pin drop.  Why?  Forbes was funny and smart –he made economics accessible to all.  And, even more important he told us things we really really didn’t know. 

What’s the real state of the US economy?  Not bad at all!  But don’t ask the media, says Forbes.  They would rather stand in front of a gas pump talking about $4 a gallon gas than actually do research on the the dry stuff that matters, like US monetary policy. And he’s right. (Full disclosure, as many of you know, I was a reporter for 20 years.  I know how it really works.)

Forbes spoke eloquently about the real drivers of our economy, and I was convinced after he spoke–we still have the largest most resilient economy in the world.  He pointed out that as voters we’d better start asking better questions of the people running for office. For example, how will they approach monetary policy?  Because according to Forbes, it wasn’t oil companies or mortgage lenders that brought this on, but by the Fed, which four years ago, and again last year, started printing money like there was no tomorrow.  In an overreaction to the credit crisis, both times, it did more harm than good.

But back to executive presence.  What makes Forbes so powerful on stage?  Wit, intelligence, and the ability to explain something that dry and dull and make it fascinating.  What else did we like about him?  Smart as he is, he didn’t swagger onto the stage or lord his fortune or his smarts over us.  He was hilarious really, as well as respectful.  He treated his audience as the intelligent citizens they want to be. 

Something else– he obviously wasn’t reading someone else’s talking points.  He walked away from the podium five minutes in, and stood center stage for the better part of an hour, speaking eloquently.  If you’ve seen him speak, you know that sometimes his gestures seem slightly out of sync with his message.  Yet he transitioned beautifully from gas prices to the mortage crisis, tax policy to monetary policy, government to politics, all without notes.  He even threw in several funny lines about the speaker who had immediately preceded him on stage.  That’s confidence.  

You also can’t argue with Forbes success, even if he did inherit the company started by his grandfather.  Forbes is still on the cutting edge.  In 1977 they entered the new media arena with the launch of Forbes.com. The site now attracts over seven million unique visitors a month and has become the leading destination site for business decision-makers and investors.

For a copy of his speech, contact the National Speakers Association at www.nsaspeaker.org - I highly recommend you watch it, and take notes.

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AARP magazine this month has a great article entitled “Everyone has a Story to Tell.” Abigail Thomas, the author of A Three Dog Life and Safekeeping, teaches the art of memoir writing, and provides some wonderful advice on tapping into your creative side.

Thomas says writing is important to her, because it’s how she makes sense of her life. I agree. Writing doesn’t just allow you to make sense of your personal life. It’s a fantastic tool for getting perspective on your business life and the life of your company.

Whether or not you have a “secret dream” to write personal memoirs, writing stories is a fabulous way to bring pizzazz, perspective and a personal touch to your presentations. And you don’t need to get “ultra” personal with a story. To make it work for a business presentation, it just needs to be yours…so that people connect with you and understand your perspective.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, has a story. One of our senior consultants, Craig Bentley, likes to say, “If you’re breathing, you have stories.” We’ve found the best way to “discover” your own stories is to recall scenarios like this:

• A successful (or unsuccessful) team project
• An awkward moment in business you’ll never forget
• A failure that taught you an important principal or value
• A person who has inspired you in your personal or business life

Just like writing a memoir, writing a business story really helps you get perspective. But don’t try to force the point. As you write, put it all on paper and then, go back and look for the point of the story.

My favorite part of the AARP article is “21 Ways to Start Writing”

Again, these are memoir tips, but try them out when looking for business stories:

• Write two pages of apologies
• Write two pages in which something is broken
• Write two pages on taking your time

Storytelling is a leadership skill — every leader should have an anthology of stories that reveal something about them.

So carve out a couple of hours at home on the weekend, put up your feet, get a legal pad or a laptop computer and just start! You’ll be amazed at what happens when you set aside time for personal creativity.

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