7-Slide Solution(tm): Telling Your Business Story In 7 Slides or Less [Paperback]

Paul J. Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2005

A unique approach to organizing and constructing business presentations that draws on the insights of cognitive psychology and provides an infrastructure to build presentations that resonate with your audience like a good story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (December 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419620037
• ISBN-13: 978-1419620034
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #619,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The generic becomes TM, July 3, 2008

By 

Mike B of Syd "Mike" (Oz) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 7-Slide Solution(tm): Telling Your Business Story In 7 Slides or Less (Paperback)

What makes a presentation compelling? According to the author here, it's the ability to tell a solid story and that, asserts the author, can be done in just seven slides.

I liked this book and yet, for me, I felt that the information had been presented before and done better in a couple of other titles: Beyond Bullet Points and Presenting to Win. Both of these provided clearer presentations of their own material (that is remarkably similar in some ways) than this particular book. One reason for that might have been nothing more than the text-heavy nature of this publication: it feels more weighty than the other publications and detracts from its simple message. While the publisher might have wished to estbalish this as a more serious handling of the topic, it lacks 'white space' in its own presentation.

The material here is fine: the 'story' is a natural format for presentations since we all, at heart, love conflict & resolution. If you've not read material like this before then this book will provide a good introduction. But there are other options that convey the same detail in a less textually heavy manner.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good Idea, Poor Execution, June 3, 2009

By 

Chris Reich "Business Physicist and Astronomer" (Northern, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: 7-Slide Solution(tm): Telling Your Business Story In 7 Slides or Less (Paperback)

This is two part book. Part 1, how to construct a story. Part 2, creating the slides.

Part 1 is adequate. Yes, it's best to present your data or idea in a coherent, building, story. But the text-heavy explanation of story telling is dull. The book looks like it was designed in 1998.

Part 2 is a disaster. The example slides are horrible. Every example slide is a perfect example of how NOT to design a slide.

My conclusion is that if you make slides like the ones in this book, keep the presentation to as few slides as possible. 7 may be too many.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for speakers, August 29, 2008

By 

B. Forrest (Franklin, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 7-Slide Solution(tm): Telling Your Business Story In 7 Slides or Less (Paperback)

For my senior year of college we had a new university president. He liked to take a lot of the chapel time to talk about all the ways they were planning to spend our money on improvements to the school that we would never get to see. He also liked to use PowerPoint - a lot! After a few chapels, we were sick of PowerPoint.

Over the years I have been presented to with PowerPoint in a lot of different settings. Most of the time it was the same story of "blah blah blah." Too many people lean on the tool to enhance their presentation when all it does is illuminate the boredom. PowerPoint doesn't make presentations. People make presentations.

That's why I liked the premise of Paul Kelly's book The Seven Slide SolutionTM. I really found the first two sections interesting and helpful when it comes to developing a presentation using PowerPoint. Based on the way people's brains work, Kelly suggests that a presentation doesn't need to be any longer than seven slides. Anything beyond that is wasting your time and the audiences - they won't remember it. He walks you through the process of developing a story, from creating a premise to establishing conflict, adding tension, and ultimately providing a resolution to your presentation. The final section seemed to me a more hands on or reference to have handy when you are actually putting together the presentation.

Again, it wasn't exactly exciting or motivating, but I learned some good things. If you use PowerPoint very often, it might be a good book to take a look at. It's also a good refresher for putting together the basic elements of a story.