Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication that Drives Action [Paperback]

Andrew Abela (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0787996599 | ISBN-13: 978-0787996598 | Edition: 1

Advanced Presentations by Design overturns much of the conventional wisdom and practice for creating presentations. Based on over 200 research studies from the fields of communication, marketing, psychology, multimedia, and law, it provides fact-based answers to critical questions about presentation design, including how to adapt your presentation to different audience personality preferences, what role your data should play and how much of it you need, how to turn your data into a story, and how to design persuasive yet comprehensible visual layouts.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

If you've ever wondered why your presentations do not get enough of your audience to act on what you present, then spend 20 minutes with this book.

Advanced Presentations by Design overturns much of the conventional wisdom and practice for creating presentations. Based on over 200 research studies from the fields of communication, marketing, psychology, multimedia, and law, it provides fact-based answers to critical questions about presentation design. The book shows how to adapt your presentation to different audience personality preferences, what role your data should play and how much of it you need, how to turn your data into a story, and how to design persuasive yet comprehensible visual layouts.

All this is delivered via the succinct 10-step Extreme Presentation method, which has been field-tested extensively in leading corporations such as Microsoft, Kimberly-Clark, eBay, ExxonMobil, HJ Heinz, and Motorola. Advanced Presentations by Design takes you, step by step, from a stack of information to a finished presentation that will compel your audience to take action.

Expert Praise for Advanced Presentations by Design

"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, Say It With Charts and Say It With Presentations

"This book is essential for any executive who doesn't have time to wade through sixty-page PowerPoint decks. You will want to make this book required reading for all your staff."
—Stew McHie, Global Brand Manager, ExxonMobil

"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, Dr. Abela has outlined a set of principles that will make your presentations more memorable and persuasive."
—Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford Business School, and coauthor, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management

The Author

About the Author

Dr. Andrew Abela is an authority on designing presentations of complex and controversial information. He is currently an associate professor of marketing at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He was the founding managing director of the Marketing Leadership Council, and is a former McKinsey and Company consultant. He provides presentation training and consulting to leading corporations and governmental agencies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787996599
• ISBN-13: 978-0787996598
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.6 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Practical How-To Guide To Planning and Developing Compelling Presentations January 16, 2009

By August Jackson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Professor Abela has compiled a step-by-step guide to how to plan and deliver compelling presentations. Let me dissect that praise:

* Plan: Professor Abela walks you through the important questions you need to consider before you open up PowerPoint and begin pulling your slides together. This includes analyzing your audience, enumerating your objectives for the presentation and establishing a story structure through which you can marshall and convey your evidence. This is far and away the best framework of the many I have seen for pre-design work. The great thing about Professor Abela's framework for planning is that the framework is just as useful for meetings and speeches in which you will not be speaking to slides. Clearly the objectives, story and evidence are more important than the content of your PowerPoint slides. Wouldn't it be great to have a way forward if you are left with only 5 of your scheduled 30 minutes to present or the projector breaks down? Use Professor Abela's planning framework and you'll be ready.

* Deliver: Not all venues are alike, and Professor Abela takes the best of Tufte and other visualization experts to lay out guidance for designing presentations for a ballroom and a boardroom setting. Abela provides workable guidelines for using charts and layout to visually augment your message. This book includes a number of standard charts that easily and clearly represent the basic concept you are trying to convey on each slide. As much as I enjoy Tufte, Abela's book gave me direct actionable guidance that I needed to augment my spoken message with visual evidence.

Recently I applied the "Extreme Presentations" methods to a talk at a professional conference. The presentation itself (ballroom style) stood out as more visually informative than the standard corporate fare delivered by the other presenters. More important, though, is that I had clearly mapped out the change in mindset that I wanted to see in my audience. I had properly structured my talk to marshall the appropriate evidence in sequence and make the case successfully. As I created my problem-solution and anecdote outline I actually became excited for the opportunity to make my case to my audience. Following the presentation several attendees approached me to comment that I had changed their mind on the critical insight that was my goal.

Using "Extreme Presentations" to create a presentation takes longer than the standard corporate presentation (at least my first presentations developed in this model have taken longer). The quality of the visuals and the reception by the audience really does deliver a worthy return on that time investment. It's clear to my audiences that I've taken the time to think about them, consider their interests and taken care to create a good-looking and relevant set of visuals. This quality makes it clear to my audiences that I care about them, and that goes a long way towards making the audience care about what I am communicating.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for every presenter, manager, and leader January 19, 2010

By gnomic

Format:Paperback

This book lays out a methodology to create presentations that make a real difference. And the method works - my company subscribes to Corporate Executive Board, a industry best practice research service that follows the methods in this book. CEB is one of the few companies that I make time to attend their presentations because they are worth my limited time. And not only is the research solid, the information is presented in a way that makes it understandable and makes an impact with executives and managers. The method is repeatable, simple, and can make a difference right away.

I know. I've given a half dozen presentations using just some of the methods and have noticed my feedback scores increase. I've had people ask me for advice on presenting. That's results.

This book isn't about presentations, flashy graphics, or even the Zen of presenting. It about communications. And it debunks a lot of presentation myths with solid research. Its worth its weight in gold (even at today's prices!) to people who need to get their point across to groups of any size.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have for developing evidence-based presentations. December 18, 2008

By Tracy A. Altman

Format:Paperback

It's not every day I see a book offering chapters with names like "Marshalling your evidence" and "Assembling the anecdotes that will illustrate your evidence". Abela answers the question "What does the evidence say about presenting evidence?" This book analyzes the building blocks of effective presentations in a way I've never seen.

Abela provides specific evidence of what's most likely to work, and why, when you want people to *act* on something you present to them. But the book is more than a recap of scientific findings: It's written from the perspective of a marketer and business manager, offering practical, evidence-based advice about how to focus on a problem your audience has, and how to show them you can help solve it. Three key topics are:

1. Structuring stories. Abela presents a SCORE method for sequencing evidence: Situation, Complication, Resolution, Example. The aforementioned "Assembling anecdotes" chapter talks about three types of stories we can use: 1) One that relates directly to our situation, 2) a hypothetical story, or 3) a more metaphorical one.

2. Using graphics. The book provides numerous examples of charts and other graphics, explaining which can help you best present your data. I've heard plenty of discussions of visual presentation -- Abela goes into more detail than most, staying focused on interpreting the hard evidence about how to engage an audience.

3. Setting goals for your presentation. Abela talks about setting measurable objectives for what you want your audience to think and do differently after your presentation.

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to present convincing evidence in a business environment.