rabodzey's Full Review: Gene Zelazny - Say It With Presentations: How to D...
Executive Summary:
It is a great book that makes you think a lot and you have to get it.
For those who do not know: Gene Zelazny (also author of "Say it with Charts") is a director of visual communication at McKinsey and Co. For those who do not know what that is - it is the company that EVERY MBA student appliet to, but only those who were accepted will tell you that.
Basically the guy is known to be the best out there.
The Book
This is one of the world's most widely known book in closed circles of people who present for living. One of the key reasons for its success is McKinsey stigma attached to it. People feel that this is something special that will not just make them better presenters, but will open their eyes, will reveal some hidden secret and make them extremely successful. And it does.
The Pros.
The book is very easy to read and is just a pleasurable experience. Instead of offering "Ten Steps to Become a Millionaire" or some other "proprietary" B.S., it just tells you very high-level ideas about presenting. Something you probably knew before, but it does it in such an inexplicable way, that you really get it.
I never spoke with Gene (I hope I will), but I guess his key idea was to give you a key to chest with treasure. The treasure of your imagination. He opens it up for you the way you never imagined before. You just say "WOW!"
The way he accomplishes that is through series of examples of some outrageously outside-of-the-box presentations that McKinsey gave. After seing that, you feel as if your chains were broken and you open up a whole new dimension of creativity.
Gene gives some tests and examples you can design yourself and then shows his ideas. I was stunned when my plots MATCHED some of his answers. I realized that these are fundamental axioms of our perception and nature, things we expect to see, things that I, Gene and you can do equally well if we free our mind.
This message really empowers: I CAN BE LIKE GENE! YOU CAN BE LIKE GENE! YOU CAN BE BETTER! FREE YOUR MIND AND LET IT FLY!
Well, let's go back to Earth though...
Cons.
You may have noticed that I was singing this verse to Gene, but said nothing about the actual content.
There is a good reason for that: the book is not about content. It won't be a great reference source, it won't be a great structured bible of "how-to-do" things. If you look for clear-cut step-by-step guidelines... not here.
But here is the deal - it's not designed for that. The book is not about teaching you how to react in each particular case; it is about being able to react in ANY case. Being able to "get it". Thus I do not really feel that it is a drawback, it's like looking for spare tire and set of tools in Ferrari.
Conclusions:
This book is for people who know quite a bit about presenting, but look for a way to free their mind and go beyond slides and graphs. If that is you - get it.
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