Every once in a while, simple ideas change business forever - this book is full of such ideas. A must-read if you want to do something about all those impenetrable reports, slides and information packs. This book has all the answers and will redefine how you think about business documents.

Dominic Burke, Chief Executive, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc

This is a vital topic that has been sorely neglected. Jon’s book changes that. It is crammed with new ideas that are creative, thoughtful, yet practical and relevant for all disciplines of business. Essential reading for everyone in business!

Dr Jikyeong Kang, Professor of Marketing and Director of MBA Programmes, Manchester Business School

I’ve seen Jon’s talk and his ideas are full of originality and wisdom. Many ideas are stunningly simple, others are mould-breaking. He takes preconceived thinking and turns it on his head. Your business reporting will never be the same again.

Michael Izza, Chief Executive ICAEW

STRAPLINE: Clear information shows clear thinking, and clear thinking informs, influences and impresses.

How often do you stare at uninviting and confusing presentations, notes, reports and information packs? And get nothing out of them? But it doesn’t have to be like this. We can all produce amazingly clear work that has incredible impact — if only we knew how.  This book shows you how. Itis full of ideas, tips and principles that are simple and easy to implement, yet brilliantly effective.You will never look at a business document in the same way again.  And your work will impress the people that matter and get the results you want.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 4 Ratings

It has certainly had an impact on my work! - 2008-04-11
Reviewer Rating:
In September of last year, I attended a one-day training course called "Clearly presenting information". The course was delivered by Jon Moon, the author of this book. To put it mildly, the course was quite eye opening. In a very effective manner, Mr. Moon demonstrated why certain, pretty standard ways of presenting and "enhancing" information actually achieved the opposite, and at the same time he showed alternatives. During the day, he covered graphs, tables, bullets; talked about PowerPoint and Excel; introduced the concept of WiT (Words in Tables) and generally covered a lot of ground on the aspects of presenting information. I came away from that course feeling embarrassed about some of the work I had produced in the (not too distant) past, and excited about the opportunities I now saw for presenting information in a new light.

Fast forward to 2008, I can say that that course has both changed how I look at information, and how I produce it. When Mr. Moon's book was published I purchased a copy, and I was glad to see that it has all the good things from the course and a lot more.

The book is loaded with examples of good and bad, but more importantly, it eloquently explains why certain charts or styles or tables will be effective, and why others are not. It is impossible to effectively summarize the book in a short book review, but here are some examples of what to expect (Amazon doesn't do tables in its reviews, so it doesn't look as good as it would it in a Word document):

Why bullet points often don't work well, and what to use instead:

Tips to improve bullets - provide a lead in, order
Introduces WiT, or Words in Tables


When graphs work and when they don't:

Avoid pie charts and clustered column charts
Be careful with color
Avoid legends, they create a puzzle
Lead in with a title that informs


Five big changes to improve your tables:

1. Remove unnecessary gridlines
2. Avoid too much emphasis
3. Sort out row and column order
4. Make compact
5. Give a lead in title

And never forget, that what you should put in front of your audience will always depend on the audience, the message you want to convey and the medium through which you are presenting.

The above only scratches the surface of these topics; the three chapters alone are worth the price of the book for everyone who works with financial information and presents data to others. In addition to these topics, Mr. Moon's book has chapters on making comparisons, slides, numbers and document design, as well as some more specific chapters on variance analysis and flash reports and organization charts. In an appendix Mr. Moon explains how to create some of his specific formats in Excel and Word.

Overall, this is a well written book, with entertaining quotes and excellent tips, and even if you just skim it you are bound to pick up some useful ideas. Not every chapter in the book is equally valuable, and there are some areas where I don't fully agree with Mr. Moon. However, there should be something for everyone in this book to take away, and a lot for most.

If you are interested in reading more about the topic, I recommend "The visual display of quantitative information", by Edward Tufte. This book contains the essay "the cognitive style of PowerPoint; Pitching out corrupts within", a must read if you work a lot with PowerPoint.

Refreshingly Simple and Practical and Great Support - 2009-05-06
Reviewer Rating:
I read this book recently and found the material to be refreshingly well communicated and very practical.

As someone who spends most of their business life preparing reports, proposals and presentations I've read many books of this type but I've never found one as easy to read and as practical as this one.

I admit I've been addicted to bullet points, poorly designed tables and oversized and overlabelled graphs. I can prepare above average business documents but that's not saying much. When you come across the odd professionally designed document you realise just how far from the mark you really are.

This book provided the right mix of high level and detail for me as a non-designer striving to improve the professionalism of my communications.

I was also very impressed with the range of downloads and references available on Jon Moon's website and I was so impressed to get an email response from Jon within a few hours of firing off half a dozen questions.

This book isn't the one stop shop for improving your output but it is a very worthwhile addition to my personal reference library.

A thoroughly valuable and pragmatic book - 2008-03-06
Reviewer Rating:
One of those rare books that has a high density of insights and practical suggestions.

I read every section 2-3 times just to ensure I captured each of the authors insights. As I applied each suggestion, the impact of my presentations increased (based on the feedback of my peers).

Bravo!

This book has IMPACT - 2008-02-19
Reviewer Rating:
I work in IT consultancy and I had been struggling for some time with how to increase the impact of documents and presentations. I had had a suspicion that a focus on content was not enough.
This book provides concrete, practical advice on how to immediately improve the impact of your business documents and presentations by improving the layout and appearance.
The key idea is clarity.
All of the brilliant ideas and important information contained in your business presentations, reports or proposals are wasted if they are not conveyed clearly and simply in a way that the intended recipient can understand and act on.
With the simple, easy to read and understand concepts you can get to work right away and make rapid improvements. This really appealed to me: the book itself is a great example of the ideas it presents. I read most of it sitting in a crowded departure lounge at London City airport and could not put it down.

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