Ideuhs

Putting the Zen in Presentation

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself returning again and again to Garr Reynold’s blog Presentation Zen. A friend at Duarte Design recommended I read his book, also titled Presentation Zen. If you have to make and give presentations, and most of us do, Garr Reynolds is an amazing source of wisdom and practical advice.

Being in advertising, presentation is part of daily life for me. I’ve sat through my share of mind-numbing presentations consisting of slide after slide crammed with too much data and too many bullet points. And while I’ve always struggled to keep my slides simple, it’s always been, well, a struggle. Experiencing Garr’s extremely minimalist approach really made the scales fall from my eyes.  

Garr’s signature presentation style makes use of quality images displayed full-bleed or elegantly layered against a dark background, with very few words employed to make the most fundamental point. The basic idea is: one slide, one point. At first I thought his approach was more appropriate for lecture-style presentations, in which the presenter is performing in front of a larger audience, and that it wouldn’t work in real-world client meetings.

However, after a few months of progressively peeling away the layers of information in my slides, I had an opportunity to create a presentation on content marketing and social media, and decided to go for broke. I was pleasantly surprised by the results and the positive energy in the room.

Most of us go into a presentation in a defensive mode, expecting that our audience wants to see rock-solid proof of every point we plan to make, or an irrefutable chain of logic. And the result is … slide after slide crammed with too much data and too many bullet points. I think the value that Garr brings is in demonstrating that if we can let go of our fears, stop hiding behind our slides and step out in front of them, using them to illustrate and emphasize what we want to communicate, we will all be more effective presenters.

It takes discipline to capture one simple idea on each slide and to rely on our own mastery of a subject to furnish the fuel for our talk. It means we have to know what we’re talking about and have the confidence not to read off the screen. So, for anyone who labors over the order of their bullet points, I recommend losing the bullet points and reading Garr’s book and blog.

The Catcher in the Rye

In remembrance of J.D. Salinger, I'm reposting an entry from October 2008:

This evening I had to write a short essay on "My Greatest Accomplishment" for a writing job. It took me a couple of days to figure out what I would be comfortable writing about. I let my thoughts simmer and then this morning it struck me that so far my greatest accomplishment is raising my son. It also provided me a perfect excuse to express some thoughts I had about The Catcher in the Rye a couple of years ago.

I have a theory that changes occur in the brain at key life stages – such as marriage and the birth of a child – that in fact make it impossible to single people to fully understand married people, and for people who do not have children to understand those who do.

It was not until I had a son that I felt I actually understood The Catcher in the Rye.  Having gone to boarding school, I read this book several times during my youth, and then again in adulthood because I had never been able to figure it out.  Those who have read it will recall that Holden Caulfield reflects upon an old ballad that goes, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.” (It's actually a poem by Robert Burns.) Holden imagines children playing in a rye field near a cliff, with himself standing at the edge, ready to catch them so they don’t fall off. 

Holden wants to be that catcher in the rye, but why this is so eluded me until one day I was watching my then much younger son on a play structure in a park, hovering about in case he should drop off the edge.  Then it occurred to me: as parents, we are all catchers in the rye. 

The Catcher in the Rye is a tale of a somewhat neglected child running away from boarding school to go on an unsupervised spree through New York City, sneaking into his parents’ apartment at night only to check on his younger sister and grab some clothes.  It is fairly clear that there is a degree of emotional distance between Holden and his parents.  Parenting seems to be the missing element in Holden’s adolescence; he wishes to be the catcher in the rye, perhaps, because he wishes for someone to catch him as well.

So is that what The Catcher in the Rye is all about: a wish for parental love? I'd like to write up a longer essay on this, but for now it's nice to ponder that I've become the catcher in the rye.

The Catcher in the Rye

This evening I had to write a short essay on "My Greatest Accomplishment" for a writing job. It took me a couple of days to figure out what I would be comfortable writing about. I let my thoughts simmer and then this morning it struck me that so far my greatest accomplishment is raising my son. It also provided me a perfect excuse to express some thoughts I had about The Catcher in the Rye a couple of years ago.

I have a theory that changes occur in the brain at key life stages – such as marriage and the birth of a child – that in fact make it impossible to single people to fully understand married people, and for people who do not have children to understand those who do.

It was not until I had a son that I felt I actually understood The Catcher in the Rye.  Having gone to boarding school, I read this book several times during my youth, and then again in adulthood because I had never been able to figure it out.  Those who have read it will recall that Holden Caulfield reflects upon an old ballad that goes, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.” (It's actually a poem by Robert Burns.) Holden imagines children playing in a rye field near a cliff, with himself standing at the edge, ready to catch them so they don’t fall off. 

Holden wants to be that catcher in the rye, but why this is so eluded me until one day I was watching my then much younger son on a play structure in a park, hovering about in case he should drop off the edge.  Then it occurred to me: as parents, we are all catchers in the rye. 

The Catcher in the Rye is a tale of a somewhat neglected child running away from boarding school to go on an unsupervised spree through New York City, sneaking into his parents’ apartment at night only to check on his younger sister and grab some clothes.  It is fairly clear that there is a degree of emotional distance between Holden and his parents.  Parenting seems to be the missing element in Holden’s adolescence; he wishes to be the catcher in the rye, perhaps, because he wishes for someone to catch him as well.

So is that what The Catcher in the Rye is all about: a wish for parental love? I'd like to write up a longer essay on this, but for now it's nice to ponder that I've become the catcher in the rye.