Speaking PowerPoint: The New Language of Business [Paperback]

Bruce R. Gabrielle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2010

You use PowerPoint at work to create strategic plans, executive briefings, research reports and other boardroom-style slides. But could your slides be clearer, more convincing and built in half the time? You bet!

Learn a new method for business managers who want to use PowerPoint at work to drive strategy. The Mindworks Presentation Method is based on 40 years of research in brain science, instructional design and information design and will help you to

• Eliminate time wasters and complete PowerPoint decks three times faster
• Enhance your credibility by creating visually pleasing slides using simple graphic design rules
• Make complex slides easier to understand and avoid "Death by PowerPoint" forever
• Make audiences more likely to agree with you by applying the proven principles of master persuaders

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book changed my way of thinking about PowerPoint and how to use it. I strongly urge you to pick up a copy and give it a read.
- Chris Witt, Author, Real Leaders Don't Do PowerPoint

This is the thinking person's book on PowerPoint presentations. Full of interesting, important, innovative and--at times--provocative ideas that can elevate any corporate presentation.
- David K. Farkas, Ph.D., University of Washington

...grabbed and held my attention. You'll learn plenty of new techniques from this book. I know I did. This one's a keeper.
- Michael McLaughlin, Management Consulting News

Where Bruce's book excels is in its relevance to the way that business gets done. He helps you identify what you should communicate and what can be left out...all with the goal of being as effective as possible.

- Jeremy Epstein, Never Stop Marketing

From the Back Cover

Learn the new language of business in the boardroom.
The rulebook that should come with every copy of PowerPoint.

In the first book of its kind, author Bruce Gabrielle reviews 40 years of research from fields as diverse as information design, neuroscience, cognitive science, education, advertising, graphic design and the legal profession to learn the secrets of using visual communication to powerfully influence in the boardroom. Based on how the mind works, the Mindworks Presentation Method shows you how to create business slides that are clear, professional-looking and convincing, and can be your secret weapon for selling ideas like never before and winning in the idea marketplace.

"Finally, we can graduate from ad-hoc and rule-of-thumb advice to a scientifically proven method for really winning in the idea marketplace."
- Zubair Murtaza, Sr. Director, Microsoft Corp.

"An outstanding resource for executives. This book presents fundamental principles for creating visuals that communicate and sell ideas in the boardroom and beyond."
- Tonya Fuhs Wallace, Director, Leadership Development at Chicago Booth

"Practical advice to enhance your ability to persuade, influence and inform in today's business world where PowerPoint is an essential business and communications tool."
- Gerardo A. Dada, Sr. Director, Baraarvoice

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 310 pages
• Publisher: Insights Publishing (October 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 098423604X
• ISBN-13: 978-0984236046
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 10 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Computers & Technology > Home Computing & How-to > Microsoft How-to > PowerPoint
  • #13 in Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Running Meetings & Presentations
  • #37 in Books > Computers & Technology > Software > Business

More About the Author

Bruce Gabrielle is author of "Speaking PowerPoint: the new language of business" which shows business managers how to use PowerPoint effectively to influence and persuade in the boardroom. Bruce is president of Insights Works, a market research firm specializing in the high-technology industry where he regularly creates and presents boardroom-style slides to executives.

Bruce conducts workshops on the Mindworks Presentation Method for businesses, consulting firms, associations and educational institutions.

Learn more at www.speakingppt.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A down-to-earth, pragmatical book for real-world presentations January 12, 2012

By El Arte de Presentar

Format:Paperback

PowerPoint and its infamous bullet points have been so abused in later years that the term "PowerPoint death" has become widespread, to the extent that some voices claim that PowerPoint is making us stupid or threatening our thinking and reasoning.
It's understandable that as a reaction some very popular books published in the last couple of years about presentations focused on creating minimalist slides, with stunning visuals and little text. These decks might be appropriate for ballroom-style presentations before large audiences expecting to be motivated and/or entertained.
However, the vast majority of presentations in the business world are boardroom-style presentations in which these design guidelines have little application. Bruce Gabrielle has written a book for the rest of us: the professionals who have to speak often in boardroom meetings before small, highly motivated audiences expecting lots of details and thorough information.
This type of "formal" presentations had been neglected and forgotten in previous literature. This book is fully oriented to people who have to create and deliver strategic plans, marketing plans, research reports, product planning decks, execution plans, program proposals and other business planning presentations.
Another differentiating feature of the book which I highly appreciated is the heavy use of results from cognitive science research to back up all its recommendations and guidelines. Whereas other books speak off the cuff, this one supports all its claims with solid evidence.
The book counts on a great number of carefully designed slides to illustrate the dos and don'ts of effective graphic communication.... He even uses a fictional story of two characters creating a presentation from scratch to guide the reader in the difficult task of designing a persuasive business presentation.
Summing up, Speaking PowerPoint is a down-to-earth, pragmatical book which will help professionals take business presentations to the next level. If you're looking for just one book on presentation structure and design, look no more. This is the ONE. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely useful, easily applied March 28, 2011

By ABA

Format:Paperback

From the first day I picked up the book, I began applying its principles. For companies who use PowerPoint to communicate, Gabrielle's writing is an extremely valuable tool to elevate the facts and key messages (and the hence the discussion) of important business decisions. I have used this book to coach corporate "story-telling" with my team, and will continue to frequently reference it when building my own presentations. Thank you for writing such a clear, easily applied guide!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More science than art, more USEFUL than most February 15, 2011

By M2K

Format:Paperback

Having spent my entire professional career in either consulting or corporate strategy, I found this book extremely useful. It demystifies the process of creating Powerpoint decks and provides practical recommendations grounded on fundamental human behavior science. It has been a challenging journey when the way most of us learn to create decks is through an apprenticeship model. The learnings are all based on your boss's or firm's deck style. Often, the basis of your promotion depended on your ability to quickly adjust and learn how to create decks. Many hours were spent on relearning and being told that its more of an art than a science. I wish I had this book when I first started creating decks. The book is well written and offers additional references if you choose to dive deeper into a particular topic. I like how I can quickly find what I need and have examples to make the book's recommendations real. It's changed the way I create decks and has transformed the way my team approaches them today.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As much about clear thinking and communication as it is about PowerPoint October 12, 2011

By J. F. Malcolm

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Speaking PowerPoint is one of the best books on slide presentations I have seen in a long time because it is full of practical suggestions, solidly supported by evidence, and clearly and compellingly written.
But it's not for everyone. If you want to learn how to put together beautiful slides with stunning visuals to inspire or entertain, buy a book such as Nancy Duarte's Resonate or Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen.
But if you want to sell ideas to critical thinkers, Speaking PowerPoint will help. To see where this book fits and why it is so important, let's first look at the situations where PowerPoint decks can be deployed:
At the extreme right of the scale are the ballroom style presentations, which are presented to large audiences. Think of Steve Jobs doing a new product launch. In these types of presentations, the speaker does all the talking, supplies almost of all the words, and uses compelling visuals to add to the emotional impact.
Moving to the left, you have what Gabrielle calls briefing decks, which are used in boardroom settings; the audience is much smaller, but still may include up to about twenty people. The speaker is still doing most of the talking, but there is some interactivity.
Discussion decks are used in boardrooms as well, but the audience might be in the single digits. The presenter still does most of the talking, at least at first, but the primary purpose is a full-participation discussion with a lot of interaction.
Finally, a reading deck can be used as a document, meant to be read individually either on paper or on a screen. In this situation, the deck has to stand alone and convey all the important information by itself.
Speaking PowerPoint is intended for decks on the left side of the scale.... The difference with these decks is that the audience is more cognitively engaged. Ballroom audiences might be happy being entertained or motivated, but speakers in most business situations expect strong logic and solid evidence, and might need lots of it before they're convinced. This book shows you how to deliver it without committing the standard PowerPoint sins of too much text and confusing clutter.
I've always thought that the most important phase of creating a slide deck occurs before you even open up the application, so I was happy to see that Gabrielle's first section has four chapters devoted to putting your argument together. You first figure out what you want to say by putting yourself into the reader's position and figuring out what is the main question they want answered. (The book uses the word reader, which gives you an indication of where its main focus is.) Next, you structure the main points that support the key theme, and then add the evidence that strengthens your points.
Once you've done all this, you might think it's finally time to crank up the laptop, but that would be a mistake. Gabrielle offers compelling reasons and evidence why you can do better thinking on paper than in slides. Time spent up front on paper will repay itself many times over by time saved during the creation of the slides.
Section 2 turns to the content on the slides themselves. The book explains the best way to write a headline instead of a title, how to break your content into chunks of information that your audience can comfortably process, and various ways to use pictures to make your presentation more understandable, memorable and persuasive.
He might get a little carried away with showing off his knowledge here, as when he talks about "K-maps" for three pages when all he means is "diagrams", but that's a mere quibble. In fact, the book is extremely well-supported by research, which adds tremendous credibility to Gabrielle's own experience and also suggest numerous useful sources for those who want to learn more about each topic.
The last section does a decent job covering design, although the books by Duarte and Reynolds mentioned above cover the topic far more comprehensively. But Chapter 12, Picture and Wallpaper, is definitely well worth reading. It teaches how to guide the reader's (or listener's) eye to what is important. My favorite insight was the idea that the best way to highlight the main point is not to add but to subtract. In other words, don't make the text or the line on the graph brighter or larger than the other information, but instead to make the supporting information less prominent, by shrinking or subduing it. The supporting information becomes "wallpaper", which enhances the presentation of the picture. Of course, this supposes that you know what the main point of the slide is, and this takes us back to your careful crafting of your story.
That one insight was very timely for me, because a day after I read it last week one of the participants in my presentations class showed me a fairly busy slide and asked for my suggestions for enhancement. I suggested that he try graying out most of the text and keep the main points in black text. The result was a much clearer slide, without a lot of visual elements competing for attention.
I love it when I can take a practical suggestion from a book that makes a difference in my work. You will probably find many others that do the same for you; if you're serious about selling your ideas in business, this book is a definite asset. Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource that addresses all aspects of presentations February 10, 2011

By Al Bonner

Format:Paperback

If you're serious about improving your presenting and presentation design skills, there are a number of wonderful books you should consider adding to your library. If you're looking for a resource that addresses all the key aspects of creating great content, designing and structuring and delivering effective presentations, "Speaking PowerPoint" is a valuable, must have tool for any individual or organization.

"Speaking PowerPoint" is full of great examples and valuable tips, but goes beyond visual design elements and digs into thought and idea organization and effective communication using PowerPoint presentations.

Whether you're presenting in the boardroom, at a conference, in front of potential customers, your peers or trying to impress your boss, this book covers everything you need to take you skills to another level.