Chris Dickman (bio)

Does it have to be this way? As far back as 2001, marketing whiz Seth Godin lamented the state of presentations with his popular ebook, Really Bad PowerPoint. A few years later no less an expert on the visual display of information than Edward Tufte launched a stinging attack on current practices with his essay on "slideware," The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within. As Tufte put it, "Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?"

Certainly there is a minor industry out there ready to help those creating presentations, starting with Tufte, who includes PowerPoint use in his one-day Presenting Data and Information seminars. If you're really keen you can attend the annual four-day PowerPoint Live Conference, or simply work your way through the many books and videos devoted to presentations in general and PowerPoint in particular. You may remember an extract from Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen (New Riders) that we published on Graphics.com last year. Reynolds is based in Japan and describes himself as a "longtime student of the Zen arts." This manifested itself originally in his Presentation Zen web site, and subsequently in the book, as an emphasis on presentations embodying restraint, simplicity and naturalness. Given the hopelessness of most presentations, this approach is a welcome one.

So when Presentation Zen: The Video was released recently, I was curious to see how Reynolds would make use of the medium to add depth to the content in the book. As one might expect, Reynolds is a competent presenter and the video is professionally done. But in the course of the 50-minute CD, the material strictly adheres to the sequence of the book and the content itself, down to the visuals and examples. Just in case we forget the connection, Reynolds periodically holds the book while he's presenting. So if you've read the book, the video really won't add anything. And missing is one of the most useful chapters, which provides examples of presentations embodying the key principles of restraint, simplicity and naturalness.

The holy grail of all book authors and publishers is bulk sales. And authors of business books, including Reynolds, typically have related design or consulting practices. So I can see this as being something designed to gain entry in corporations, with the hope of it leading to enough interest in the content to trigger multiple book purchases or leads for Reynolds' services. The same thing can be said of Marty Neumeier's INNOVATION WORKSHOP video, which I covered here earlier. Not that there's anything wrong with this approach to creating videos that serve as an introduction to the main event. But it's an exaggeration to say in the case of Reynolds that the video "expands on his ideas" from the book. Instead, think of it as a well-constructed and pleasantly-presented overview.

Presentation Zen: The Video can be purchased on the Peachpit Press site in streaming form for $25.19 or as a DVD for $26.99.

Chris Dickman
Founding Editor, Graphics.com