Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, 2nd Edition (Ira Katz's Library) by Garr Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page A

used in a way that enhanced the great potential that exists within each of us. Here’s what Steve Jobs said back then in a documentary called
Memory and Imagination
(Michael Lawrence Films):
    “What a computer is to me is that it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
    —Steve Jobs
    When it comes to locomotion, humans are not such an efficient animal compared to other animals. But a human on a bicycle is the most efficient animal on the planet. The bicycle amplifies our input in an enormously productive way. Isn’t this what a computer—the most magnificent tool of our time—should do?
    During the planning stages of a presentation, does your computer function as a “bicycle for your mind,” amplifying your own capabilities and ideas? Or is it more like a “car for your mind” with prepackaged formulas that make your ideas soft? Your mind benefits when you use the computer like a bike, but it loses out when you rely only on your computer’s power the way you rely on your car’s power.
    It’s important to understand the principles of presentation creation and design, and not merely follow software application rules. The best software, in many cases, does not so much point the way as it gets out of the way, helping us to amplify our own ideas and abilities. One way to ensure that your computer and your software applications remain great tools of amplification for your ideas and your presentation is to first turn off the computer and walk away from it. You’ll be back soon enough.

    (Image in slide from iStockphoto.com.)
Paper, a Whiteboard, Post-it Notes, or a Stick in the Sand
    My favorite tools for preparing a presentation (or any other project for that matter) usually consist of a large pad of yellow legal paper and colored pens, a moleskin storyboard book, or if I am in my office, a large whiteboard. As wonderful as digital technology is, I don’t think anything is as quick, easy, and immediate as a simple pad and pencil, and nothing gives me space to jot down ideas quite like a massive whiteboard.
    Most businesspeople and even college students do all the preparation of their presentations directly in slideware. In this regard, we can learn a lot from professional designers. Most professional designers—even young, new media designers who’ve grown up on computers—usually do much of their planning and brainstorming on paper.
    This became very clear to me one day at Apple when I visited a senior director on one of the creative teams to get his input on a project. He said he had sketched out a lot of ideas to show me. I assumed that he had prepared some slides or a movie or at least printed out some color images in Illustrator or Photoshop to show me. But when I arrived at his office, I found that the beautiful Apple Cinema Display on his desk was off. (I learned later that this talented creative director worked for days without ever turning on his Mac.) Instead, he had sketched out his ideas on a scroll of white paper that stretched about five meters across his office wall. This large scroll was a combination of hand-drawn images and text resembling a large comic strip. The creative director started at one end of the “strip” and walked me through his ideas, stopping occasionally to add a word or graphic element. After our meeting, he rolled up his sketches and said “take ’em with you.” Later, I would incorporate his ideas into our internal presentation using a computer.

    “If you have the ideas,
you can do a lot without machinery.
Once you have those ideas,
the machinery starts working for you....
Most ideas you can do pretty darn well
with a stick in the sand.”
    —Alan Kay

(Interview in
Electronic Learning,
April 1994)
Pen and Paper
    I spend a lot of time working outside my office in coffee shops, in parks, and while riding on the Japanese Bullet Train (
Shinkansen
) on my trips to Tokyo. And although I have a