No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you've delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void. Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:

• Connect with specific audiences

• Turn ideas into informative graphics

• Use sketching and diagramming techniques effectively

• Create graphics that enable audiences to process information easily

• Develop truly influential presentations

• Utilize presentation technology to your advantage

Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 69 Ratings

A Powerful Presentation Design Book - 2009-09-15
Reviewer Rating:
Visual storytelling can help presenters in the workplace. A visual presentation can complement technical and financial slides in a business meeting. A presenter should balance hard facts with emotional slides to excite, even entertain your business audience. The worst sin of a business review is to bore your audience. As an instructor of executive presentation design and visual communication at China's top business school in Peking University, I can say with confidence that Slideology 'gets it'. For the price of two movie tickets, Duarte Design enables you to learn the vital skill of delivering impactful, visual stories. Technology has made PCs, digital cameras and editing software cheaper, consequently presentations have evolved from word slides and bullet points to video graphics and photos. Duarte Design helps understand these changes. Slide:ology is the definitive book on how to design modern presentations.

But critics are right, Slideology is not the right book to help you learn presentation delivery skills. The book also does not go into too much detail about how to create a presentation for different scenarios such as a business review, a pitch to venture capitalists, or a delivering a town hall address. Useful books for learning verbal presentation delivery and how to converse with different audiences include: Maxey's 'Present Like a Pro', Toogood's 'The Articulate Executive'. -Also to illustrate financial data, I recommend Few's 'Information Dashboard Design'. -[...]

Why I think Nancy Duarte is qualified to write a book on presentations:
Like the title states, Nancy Duarte and her large professional team of presentation designers at Duarte Design know the 'art' and 'science' of visual storytelling. Duarte Design accumulated experience by serving the presentation needs of Silicon Valley's top firms for decades. Recently Duarte Design supported the top presentation event in the world, TED the Technology Entertainment Design Conference. Duarte Design was the consultant that perfected the presentations used in for Al Gore's Oscar winning 'Inconvenient Truth', a documentary on global warming.

SlideOlogy - Must have tool for slide developement - 2009-10-24
Reviewer Rating:
If you are trying to develop a presentation for business, school, or communicate anything to anyone then you need this book.

It's far more than a guide. It delves into the deeper design & psychological understandings.
Why are you making the presentation?
Who is your audience?
What do you need to convey in the simplest form?
How does design effect the message?
How should it be laid out, what effect does color and design do to the flow have on the person receiving this visual message?

I read the reviews of others who said it was not worth the cost, to those I can only say they missed the point or did not read the book in it's entirety.

In examining other books on the market this one is the most comprehensive and best written. One key element for me were the examples, the design implementation and process's that were shown in a well designed fashion.

For me this is a must have design & business library book.

If you follow and learn from the book I believe you would be guaranteed a well designed and conceived presentation.

Robert
NY

Best Resource Book I've Purchased This Year! - 2009-10-20
Reviewer Rating:
I'm amazed by the negative reviews of this book. I think they must be written by people who want to know how to create slides without understanding communication.

I read a review of slide:ology in Communication Arts magazine and knew I had to have it. It's easily the most valuable book I've purchased this year.

Presentations are not about slides. They are about connecting and communicating with an audience. Communication rarely comes from a singular source, but rather a dynamic package of messages. Slideshows exist to enhance the dynamic package ... not BE the dynamic package.

Nancy Duarte gets it. She does an incredible job of teaching the intracacies of different elements to create a supportive enhancement of whatever message you want an audience to leave your presentation with.

I've been a creative Powerpoint user and speaker for many years. I use slide:ology frequently as a reference tool and for creative inspiration. I recommend it frequently to others as the ultimate reference on communicating with a slideshow.

I don't even have a recommendation on how to make it better. That is very rare for me!

Great Book - 2009-09-07
Reviewer Rating:
One of the greater books I have bought recently. This book is lead everybody to a fact! That making presentations are both art and since.

A Must Have for Anyone Creating Presentations! - 2009-09-01
Reviewer Rating:
All my Analysts and Project Managers are now fighting over this book. They say they've gotten fresh, new, practical ideas from it that are easy to implement. For once they got exactly what they were needing-help to make their presentations work!

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