Getting Naked

Garr Reynolds has quite a thing going with his excellent books about presentation style and design (see: Presentation Zen (2007) and Presentation Zen Design (2009). His first two books are very complementary with Nancy Duarte’s slide:ology and Resonate (see my earlier review) – indeed, this set of four books should be in any presenter’s library! Almost two years ago, I spent a wonderful day with both Garr and Nancy at Presentation Reboot!

Garr’s just published his new book: The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides. This is the first one of his books that I bought in the Kindle edition – now that I’ve got great Kindle readers not just on the Kindle itself but on my Mac, iPad and iPhone as well! It’s wonderful to have books with me on all of those devices! Garr uses a lot of beautiful photography in his books – and they look beautiful on the non-Kindle devices!

I particularly enjoyed Garr’s thoughts on contribution:

Some people think that a presentation or an invitation to speak

is a burden or, at best, an obligation that can’t be avoided. This is the wrong attitude. Instead, think of presentation as a welcome opportunity to make a difference. Every presentation or speech is a chance to make a contribution. We all live for the opportunity to contribute – it’s what makes us human. A contribution is never about us – it’s always about them. We show respect for the audience by being well prepared. We show we care by sharing a bit of ourselves and a small part of our own humanity.”

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