The Naked Presenter – Book Review

By
Dallas Marks
– January 27, 2012Posted in: Book Review

I have frequently heard about Garr Reynolds and his Presentation Zen books. But I never ordered one until picking out my own Christmas presents on Amazon.com last month. I’ll be speaking soon at BI 2012 in Las Vegas. It’s too late to learn how to make better slides (Presentation Zen and Presentation Zen Design), as they’re already finalized. But it’s not too late to improve my delivery, so I chose The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides as my first Garr Reynolds title. It’s a great book and this quote from page 101 explains why:

If you are talking about trying to lead a movement, change the world, or just get your message heard and remembered, then you sure as heck better be prepared to show your passion. You don’t have to be slick or polished, and you don’t have to be tall or good looking, but you do have to engage, inspire, and motivate. That’s what leaders do. That’s what naked presenters do.

Whether you’re a conference speaker or just engaging with co-workers in a conference room, this book not only gives useful presentation tips but enlarges your thinking about presentations and connecting to an audience. I’ll definitely be re-reading this book on the flight to Las Vegas and hope that the results come through in my presentations. But I will be fully dressed.

NOTE: I purchased my own copy of The Naked Presenter. It was not a complementary review copy.

Tags:

About Dallas Marks

As a business intelligence architect, developer, mentor and trainer, I help organizations across the United States harness the power of business intelligence, primarily (but not exclusively) using SAP BusinessObjects products. I prefer piano keyboards instead of computer keyboards when not blogging or tweeting about business intelligence.