Slashdot Mirror
Book Review: 15 Minutes Including Q&A
brothke writes "When I initially read 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations, I enjoyed it and thought it was a good book. It was only a few days later, sitting through yet another tedious vendor briefing, when I reread it and truly appreciated how awesome a book it really is." Read on to see what Ben has to say about this book.
15 Minutes Including Q and A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentation
author
Joey Asher
pages
112
publisher
Persuasive Speaker Press
rating
10/10
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
0978577620
summary
Great book on how to make your presentation heard
Author Joey Asher's premise is quite simple and intuitive: if you as a salesperson (or anyone trying to get a message across) can't state your case simply and succinctly, no one is going to get it or care. He notes that a major problem is that far too many salespeople and speakers waste their time on areas they think is important; but not on what the attendee wants to hear.
Asher notes that every day, businesspeople bore listeners with presentations that ramble on, make no clear points and fail to address the attendee 's key concerns. His book lays out a plan for eliminating lousy presentations.
The introduction asks the basic question, why do most presentations stink? The answer Asher gives is that they ramble on, fail to make any points, try to say so many things that they become unwieldy PowerPoint death stars with no impact and ignore key audience concerns.
Asher's answer to the problem is this: keep the presentation short; leave ample time for Q&A and work to get a compelling dialogue and interaction with the attendees. That is the premise of the first two chapters.
The book is divided into 3 sections. Part 1 is about preparing a seven-minute rifle shot presentation. In essence, tell your entire story in about seven minutes. While counter-intuitive at first; the book shows how this can be achieved.
The focus of chapter 3 is to start by focusing on key business challenge. Asher warns against starting a presentation by giving a bunch of background information about the approach. In addition, don't tell the history of the project or do anything other than shine a light on the attendee 's key problems. He suggests using short stories to succinctly illustrate the issue. Just think of how many presentations you have been in where the speaker did not get to the point until 25 minutes and 20 slides into the presentation.
Chapter 11 is titled creating slides to support your message. The book astutely notes that preparing presentations has to a large part become an exercise in preparing PowerPoint slides. The reality is that it should be an exercise in figuring out how to tell your story. Asher notes that if you want to use slides well, you should only prepare your slides after you have figured out the story that you plan to tell your audience. The failure of many presentations is that the PowerPoint drives the story and not the other way around.
Part 2 is about allowing listeners to fill in the blanks and raise questions with Q&A.Asher suggests in chapter 12 to make Q&A a major part of your presentation strategy. He notes that Q&A allows the audience to guide the message and fill in missing information. It also gives the speaker the chance to persuade by responding to objections. And finally, it improves the speaker's communications style.
While he may not realize it, Asher has uncovered what is the Achilles heel of many project problems and failures. It is that the salesperson sells an obtuse problem to a clueless customer who is oblivious to what they want or how they are going to deploy the solution.
The beauty of Q&A is twofold: first, it requires the salesperson to clearly articulate what they are selling, and the customer to articulate what their specific problems are. The answer should be a clear understanding of the issue and how the product can solve it. But the reality is that many companies will deploy expensive hardware or software solutions (often costing millions of dollars) without really understanding why they are embarking on such a venture.
The book concludes with part 3, on delivering the presentation with intensity. Part 3 moves away from the PowerPoint and into areas such as eye contact, voice energy, rehearsal and other important points. These are critical areas as even the best presentation delivered without intensity can turn into a fruitless endeavor.
While the title 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations may border on hyperbole, the reality is that the term death by PowerPoint is a real problem. The book shows a clear path in which to stop that. At 104 pages, Asher writes like he talks, clearly, succinctly and to the point. For many people, it is only after reading this important book when they will truly understand how much of their lives are wasted in by viewing pathetic PowerPoint's and listening to rambling sales monologues.
The truth is that Asher's points don't have to be limited to PowerPoint presentations exclusively. Be it e-mail messages, memos, status reports, proposals and more; if you can get to the point, and get your point across, you are often more likely to succeed.
At $7.95, the book is about as inexpensive as they get, which means you can also give ample copies to numerous people in your organization. In fact, it should be required reading to anyone who will be using PowerPoint and giving presentations.
Ultimately, the value of 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations is best summed up by Scott Leslie who suggests that one keep extra copies of this book in their briefcase at all times. Next time you re forced to listen to someone laboriously narrate bullet points, quietly slip a copy in the presenters briefcase without them noticing and sign it: "Thought you might enjoy reading this. That way, maybe your audience will enjoy your next presentation. "
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know
You can purchase 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Asher notes that every day, businesspeople bore listeners with presentations that ramble on, make no clear points and fail to address the attendee 's key concerns. His book lays out a plan for eliminating lousy presentations.
The introduction asks the basic question, why do most presentations stink? The answer Asher gives is that they ramble on, fail to make any points, try to say so many things that they become unwieldy PowerPoint death stars with no impact and ignore key audience concerns.
Asher's answer to the problem is this: keep the presentation short; leave ample time for Q&A and work to get a compelling dialogue and interaction with the attendees. That is the premise of the first two chapters.
The book is divided into 3 sections. Part 1 is about preparing a seven-minute rifle shot presentation. In essence, tell your entire story in about seven minutes. While counter-intuitive at first; the book shows how this can be achieved.
The focus of chapter 3 is to start by focusing on key business challenge. Asher warns against starting a presentation by giving a bunch of background information about the approach. In addition, don't tell the history of the project or do anything other than shine a light on the attendee 's key problems. He suggests using short stories to succinctly illustrate the issue. Just think of how many presentations you have been in where the speaker did not get to the point until 25 minutes and 20 slides into the presentation.
Chapter 11 is titled creating slides to support your message. The book astutely notes that preparing presentations has to a large part become an exercise in preparing PowerPoint slides. The reality is that it should be an exercise in figuring out how to tell your story. Asher notes that if you want to use slides well, you should only prepare your slides after you have figured out the story that you plan to tell your audience. The failure of many presentations is that the PowerPoint drives the story and not the other way around.
Part 2 is about allowing listeners to fill in the blanks and raise questions with Q&A.Asher suggests in chapter 12 to make Q&A a major part of your presentation strategy. He notes that Q&A allows the audience to guide the message and fill in missing information. It also gives the speaker the chance to persuade by responding to objections. And finally, it improves the speaker's communications style.
While he may not realize it, Asher has uncovered what is the Achilles heel of many project problems and failures. It is that the salesperson sells an obtuse problem to a clueless customer who is oblivious to what they want or how they are going to deploy the solution.
The beauty of Q&A is twofold: first, it requires the salesperson to clearly articulate what they are selling, and the customer to articulate what their specific problems are. The answer should be a clear understanding of the issue and how the product can solve it. But the reality is that many companies will deploy expensive hardware or software solutions (often costing millions of dollars) without really understanding why they are embarking on such a venture.
The book concludes with part 3, on delivering the presentation with intensity. Part 3 moves away from the PowerPoint and into areas such as eye contact, voice energy, rehearsal and other important points. These are critical areas as even the best presentation delivered without intensity can turn into a fruitless endeavor.
While the title 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations may border on hyperbole, the reality is that the term death by PowerPoint is a real problem. The book shows a clear path in which to stop that. At 104 pages, Asher writes like he talks, clearly, succinctly and to the point. For many people, it is only after reading this important book when they will truly understand how much of their lives are wasted in by viewing pathetic PowerPoint's and listening to rambling sales monologues.
The truth is that Asher's points don't have to be limited to PowerPoint presentations exclusively. Be it e-mail messages, memos, status reports, proposals and more; if you can get to the point, and get your point across, you are often more likely to succeed.
At $7.95, the book is about as inexpensive as they get, which means you can also give ample copies to numerous people in your organization. In fact, it should be required reading to anyone who will be using PowerPoint and giving presentations.
Ultimately, the value of 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations is best summed up by Scott Leslie who suggests that one keep extra copies of this book in their briefcase at all times. Next time you re forced to listen to someone laboriously narrate bullet points, quietly slip a copy in the presenters briefcase without them noticing and sign it: "Thought you might enjoy reading this. That way, maybe your audience will enjoy your next presentation. "
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know
You can purchase 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
If it's one thing that almost every presenter needs to learn, it's the power of brevity.
If you're putting more than 50 words on a slide, you've fucked up.
If you're putting more than 30 slides in a presentation, you've fucked up.
Unless you audience is highly technical and specifically looking for a highly in-depth presentation, you should never be violating those two rules.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Hard to come by, but not impossible or expensive - radio comedian Fred Allen's Treadmill To Oblivion covers the workings behind a radio show in the 1950's. Plan to do a show in 30 minutes, have some ideas, write them down, rehearse, remove what doesn't work, add in what would work better. Comedy or business, it's about getting the attention and holding it, you've got about 20 minutes before people start to fidget and look for a clock. It's better to test on an audience before going live, particularly an honest one who will tell you what your are missing - never overlook the obvious, what IS your point here?
I'm sure the book is great, but tightening up a show for a fixed amount of time is a pretty old science by now.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Also: Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. Including pretty pictures!
It's harder to write short, succint points. It's much easier to ramble, especially because a lot of people equate long and wordy points with being smart. Orwell ranted about the problem.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Anything presented to an audience should have the same characteristics as a woman's skirt.
Long enough to cover all the important details.
Short enough to keep our attention.
I actually heard that the first time from my apparently gay college english teacher. *shrug*
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The Cognative Style of Powerpoint Essay
* http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp
Also
PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports
* http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1
Some people need to be told to shut the fuck up about a hundred times before they get it. Motivational and style-type books are an exercise in repeatedly showing you why you're an ass. Sure everyone says "be brief," but I have so much shit to cover, and what do you mean no one cares? After a dozen examples, explanations, and breakdowns, you start to see a pattern of "that's a great pitch!" "Oh... that's really annoying, and nobody gives a shit about anything except the last 2 paragraphs here..."
Support my political activism on Patreon.
A sentence in the title and carry on in the body, but for some reason capitalize the first word in the latter so the body looks like a sentence but isn't.
- Forrest Gump
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Word count matters not.
Present yourself in haiku.
Concepts are retained.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
can I get a summary of the review. Too long to read.
Let's try to condense:
brothke immediately liked the book, but only later truly appreciated it.
The main message of the book is to talk simply and succinctly, or no one cares. But business people usually fail to do so. The introduction asks why, and says it's because their talks are not to the point and too long, and they ignore the audience. Asher's answer is to make short talks and to interact with the audience.
The book has 3 sections. Part 1 says to talk only seven minutes, to not give unnecessary information, and that your slides should follow your story, not the other way round.
Part 2 tells you to plan for Q&A in order to fill in missing information and better communicate. Asher uncovers that the main problem often is sales persons selling obtuse solutions to clueless customers without caring for their needs. Q&A forces the salesperson to be clear about the product and the customer to be clear about his problems.
Part 3 speaks about things like eye contact, voice energy and rehearsal, which are critical for a good presentation.
The title may border on hyperbole, but the problem is real, and the book gives a solution on 104 pages. It is well written and gives the reader important insights.
Asher's message isn't really limited to PowerPoint presentations, but can be applied universally.
The book only costs $7.95 and is a must-read for everyone. Scott Leslie suggests to carry a copy with you and smuggle it into the briefcase of anyone giving a bad talk.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You've hit it on the head: 99% of presentations are a waste of time, and could be avoided if people were willing to read.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood