Customer Reviews

Say It With Charts: The Executive's Guide to Visual Communication

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although there were some very good points about graphics communication, this book was very deceptive when buying it. 198 pages in length, I'd say that about 160 of the pages deal with exercises and sample graphs to jog your brain with good and bad ways to represent data. There's about 30 some pages of actual "stuff" to read and absorb for tips for Visual Communications. Add to that the fact that the fonts used for the book were something that elementary school students would be accustomed to reading and you could probably boil the book down to about 10 pages front and back of normal 12 point Times Roman font. That was really the most disappointing thing about the book for me. $45 retail for a book that boils down to about 10 pages of actual reading was definitely not worth it from a simple cost/benefit analysis. The reason I gave it a 3 star rating was that it was ridiculously easy to read and understand, and it did have some very good points. I really would give it more of a 3.5 star rating independent of cost, and 2 stars cost dependent. Cost aside, the book did discuss some very good principles about presenting information for audiences and goes specifically into McKinsey's recommendations for graphics presentations. Although not an unusually exciting or groundbreaking book I did pick up one or two very good business suggestions from it, and for that reason alone, I consider the book valuable.

If you're interested in getting ideas on how to present ideas graphically, this is a good little book. As many other reviewers have pointed out, several of the articles were prepared by graphic designers (some by hand in fact) and not computer graphics packages. If you're looking for suggestions on how to present ideas graphically, this is perfectly fine,... even useful. However, if you're looking for information on how to prepare graphics using Excel, you're out of luck (however, there are dozens of other books that can help you). That's just not what this books is about. Instead, the book gives you several suggestions for expressing the relationship between various activities (flow charts, diagrams, etc) illustrating performance timelines (bar graphs, area graphs, etc), and other information. However, where this book really shines, is in showing you how to incorporate various illustrations into your graphics to make them truly unique and informative. The benefit of this book is in teaching you how to conceptialize and develop unique graphics -- not in telling you how to produce generic off-the-shelf graphics. I'd recommend this book, along with "Information Graphics" by Harris and "Digital Diagrams" by Bounford, to anyone interested in learning more about charts. Overall Grade: B+/A-

I think the fellow from Indiana misses the point. This bookhelps people to understand how to communicate ideas with charts. Inthe process, lots of hand-drawn charts are shown. Sure, Excel and similar programs can make them prettier, but the point is understanding what kind of chart is best for making a specific substantive point. No program can make that judgement, and too many people let software pick the chart format with predictably uninformative results. Students, excutives, etc., who work through this book will know what kind of a chart they really need. That knowledge in hand, turn to Excel or whatever to produce presentation quality graphics. In some cases, the data will have to be transformed in ways you might not have anticipated before the right graph can be produced. This is a great book, certainly the best and clearest introduction to statistical graphs I have seen. I also strongly recommend Tufte's books on effective graphics.

As an equity analyst, consultant, and communication specialist, I saw - and made - dozens of colorful presentations with the best charts that excel can draw that simply didn't work.

After the failed presentation, a consultant or analyst who knows how to get his point across will draw a simple diagram or chart on a white board that will be far more convincing and effective than the entire PowerPoint presentation.

This book is for the person who wants to get point across.

Full disclosure - I used to work at IBM and as an entry level consultant with an MBA there the first thing you are is the .ppt whipping post. That being said, the IBM training program covers many of the concepts from this book. Why?? Simple, they work. Is it the be all and end all? No. The only thing that can help you assemble good content is practice, practice, practice - with a healthy dose of constructive criticism from someone that knows what they are talking about. I just got through a days worth of presentations last Friday to one of the most senior technology people at a major government agency. All I can say is that I really, really, really wish that the people presenting before and after me had taken 5 mintues to review this book before getting in front of that crowd - it would have prevented some spectacular flamouts.

There's a lot of useful information in this book. The most educational for me is

1. Decide what your message is and THEN design your chart. Don't just generate whatever chart Excel will spit out for you, generate the chart that SAYS what you are trying to say.

2. Once you know what you are trying to say, there are TRIGGER WORDS that lead you to the correct chart. "Increasing" suggests a time series chart. "More than" suggests an item chart. Etc.

3. The author also shows how to highlight certain lines or bars in the chart to draw the eye to the point you're trying to make.

4. The exercises are useful for internalizing what you've read and feeling a sense of mastery.

As others have noted, the book ends at the halfway mark but the author fills up the last half of the book with pointless illustrations and visuals to communicate concepts. But how many pictures of process flows do you need to see to get the point? And what am I supposed to do with a page full of mazes? So the last half of the book is pointless. For this, I take off a mark.

The author has also added a few pages on how to create slides using PowerPoint. But the advice misses the mark by a mile, suggesting you use colored text on a black background, and encourages the use of animations. In fact, black on white has the best readability and animations are more often just self-indulgent play that doesn't improve clarity for the audience.

However, the first half of the book is excellent, practial and will give your charts purpose and your presentation clear meaning. These few simple concepts, accompanied by attractively hand-drawn examples, makes the book more than worthwhile.

The first thing to say about this book is when it comes to presenting numbers McKinsey rocks. Nobody else is close.

I worked as a consultant in the UK at Safeway alongside a McKinsey team. Wow were those guys good at presenting numbers.

I experienced them again several years later at Business Objects - same thing. In my humble opinion they have a cookie cutter approach to problems, but that said, they way they user numbers is very impressive.

This book is written by the former communication guy for McKinsey and it shows.

It's a great book, quick and simple to consume.

Perhaps you won't find anything useful, but it's a small investment to make sure you aren't missing any tricks.

I used to run the Analytic Application development team at Business objects (now acquired by SAP). I made everyone on the team read this book.

Highly recommended.

Tufte is another great author on the presentation of data, but his findings are a lot harder to implement.

This book is highly actionable.

This book is a good arsenal to every executive who need to communicate in the form of charts. It opens up the minds to possibilities beyond cut and paste from Excel.

However I do agree with one of the reviewer that most of the charts in the books are drawn by graphic designers. This mean that although we can learn the most appropriate chart to use from the book, the is no way of making those charts with our basic computer software.

The message in the book is clear; great charts are more of science than arts.

When one considers the amount of time/money they spend on improving their job skills, it would seem obvious that a high-value read like 'Say it with Charts' would be worth some consideration. It provides a framework for using charts to your advantage- and not just within oral presentations. If anything, this book will increase your willingness to use charts to your advantage when selling an opinion. It forces the user to think about exactly what it is they are trying to say - and then produce a professional looking chart to relay that message.

Any edition will do - the content will not change with the times. The underlying principles can be quite powerful and can be the difference between a simple presentation and one which elicites praise.

I wasn't too impressed with the charts and the suggestions in this book. Maybe because my level of understanding and working with charts was a bit more complex than the presented material. It is good read for beginners, who are not familiar with charts at all - high school, college students. Already experienced individuals would not get much benefit out of it.