Presentation Patterns: Techniques for Crafting Better Presentations

Product Author Bios

Neal Ford is Director, Software Architect, and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm. Neal has a degree in computer science from Georgia State University, specializing in languages and compilers, and a minor in mathematics, specializing in statistical analysis. He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, video presentations, and author of six books. His primary consulting focus is the architecture, design, and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at more than five hundred developer conferences worldwide, delivering more than two thousand talks. If you have an insatiable curiosity about Neal, visit his website at nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at @neal4d.

Matthew McCullough is a 15-year veteran of enterprise software development and currently enjoys the role of Vice President of Training at GitHub Inc. He is honored to be part of such an energetic team that is helping advance the software industry to a more collaborative and creative mode of working. Matthew’s past as a co-founder of a U.S. consultancy allowed him to have the job freedom to become a world-traveling open source educator, with the support of many businesses, conference organizers, and friends making it viable. Matthew is a contributing author to the Gradle, Jenkins, and O’Reilly Git books, creator of the Git Master Class series for O’Reilly, speaker on the No Fluff Just Stuff conference tour, author of three of the top 10 DZone RefCards, and volunteer President of the Denver Open Source Users Group. He can be reached via email at matthewm@ambientideas.com or on Twitter at @matthewmccull.

Nathaniel Schutta is a senior software engineer in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with extensive experience developing Java Enterprise Edition based Web applications. He graduated from St. John’s University (MN) with a degree in computer science and has a master’s of science degree in software engineering from the University of Minnesota. For the last several years, he has focused on user interface design. Nathaniel has contributed to corporate interface guidelines and consulted on a variety of web-based applications. A long-time member of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group and a Sun-certified web component developer, Nathaniel believes that if the user can’t figure out your application, then you’ve done something wrong. Along with his user interface work, Nathaniel is the co-creator of the open-source Taconite framework, has contributed to two corporate Java frameworks, has developed training material, and has led several study groups. During the brief moments of warm weather found in his home state of Minnesota, he spends as much time on the golf course as his wife will tolerate. He’s currently exploring Ruby, Rails, and (after recently making the switch) Mac OS X. Nathaniel is the co-author of the bestselling book, Foundations of Ajax. Nate can be reached via email at ntschutta@gmail.com and on Twitter at @ntschutta.

Presentation Patterns is the first book on presentations that categorizes and organizes the building blocks (or patterns) that you’ll need to communicate effectively using presentation tools like Keynote and PowerPoint.

Patterns are like the lower-level steps found inside recipes; they are the techniques you must master to be considered a master chef or master presenter. You can use the patterns in this book to construct your own recipes for different contexts, such as business meetings, technical demonstrations, scientific expositions, and keynotes, just to name a few.

Although there are no such things as antirecipes, this book shows you lots of antipatterns—things you should avoid doing in presentations. Modern presentation tools often encourage ineffective presentation techniques, but this book shows you how to avoid them.

Each pattern is introduced with a memorable name, a definition, and a brief explanation of motivation. Readers learn where the pattern applies, the consequences of applying it, and how to apply it. The authors also identify critical antipatterns: clichés, fallacies, and design mistakes that cause presentations to disappoint. These problems are easy to avoid—once you know how.

Presentation Patterns will help you

• Plan what you’ll say, who you’ll say it to, how long you’ll talk, and where you’ll present
• Perfectly calibrate your presentation to your audience
• Use the storyteller’s “narrative arc” to full advantage
• Strengthen your credibility—and avoid mistakes that hurt it
• Hone your message before you ever touch presentation software
• Incorporate visuals that support your message instead of hindering it
• Create highly effective “infodecks” that work when you’re not able to deliver a talk in person
• Construct slides that really communicate and avoid “Ant Fonts,” “Floodmarks,” “Alienating Artifacts,” and other errors
• Master 13 powerful techniques for delivering your presentation with power, authority, and clarity 

Whether you use this book as a handy reference or read it from start to finish, it will be a revelation: an entirely new language for systematically planning, creating, and delivering more powerful presentations. You’ll quickly find it indispensable—no matter what you’re presenting, who your audiences are, or what message you’re driving home.

Related Articles

How Bad Presentations Led Me to Create Presentation Patterns

Tips for Improving your Conference Presentation: An Interview with Matthew McCullough

Author's Site

Author suggested sites: www.presentationpatterns.com

Online Sample Chapter

Presentation Patterns: Demonstrations Versus Presentations

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 4 and Index)

Table of Contents

List of Figures ix

Origins 2

Toward Patterns 3

How This Book Is Organized 10

How to Use This Book 11

Summary 11

Pattern: Know Your Audience 16

Pattern: Social Media Advertising 18

Pattern: Required 20

Pattern: The Big Why 22

Pattern: Proposed 24

Antipattern: Abstract Attorney 26

Pattern: Narrative Arc 30

Pattern: Fourthought 34

Pattern: Crucible 38

Pattern: Concurrent Creation 41

Pattern: Triad 43

Pattern: Expansion Joints 45

Pattern: Talklet 46

Pattern: Unifying Visual Theme 48

Pattern: Brain Breaks 51

Antipattern: Alienating Artifact 53

Antipattern: Celery 56

Pattern: Leet Grammars 58

Pattern: Lightning Talk 59

Pattern: Takahashi 60

Pattern: Cave Painting 62

Antipattern: Cookie Cutter 68

Pattern: Coda 70

Antipattern: Injured Outlines 71

Pattern: Peer Review 72

Pattern: Foreshadowing 75

Antipattern: Bullet-Riddled Corpse 77

Pattern: Greek Chorus 80

Antipattern: Ant Fonts 81

Antipattern: Fontaholic 83

Antipattern: Floodmarks 86

Antipattern: Photomaniac 89

Pattern: Composite Animation 92

Pattern: Á la Carte Content 95

Pattern: Analog Noise 99

Pattern: Vacation Photos 104

Pattern: Defy Defaults 106

Antipattern: Borrowed Shoes 108

Antipattern: Slideuments 112

Pattern: Infodeck 114

Pattern: Gradual Consistency 116

Pattern: Charred Trail 120

Pattern: Exuberant Title Top 123

Pattern: Invisibility 127

Pattern: Context Keeper 131

Pattern: Breadcrumbs 133

Pattern: Bookends 135

Pattern: Soft Transitions 137

Pattern: Intermezzi 139

Pattern: Backtracking 141

Pattern: Preroll 142

Pattern: Crawling Credits 143

Pattern: Live Demo 147

Antipattern: Dead Demo 151

Pattern: Lipsync 154

Pattern: Traveling Highlights 157

Pattern: Crawling Code 162

Pattern: Emergence 164

Pattern: Live on Tape 165

Pattern: Preparation 172

Pattern: Posse 174

Pattern: Seeding Satisfaction 175

Pattern: Display of High Value 177

Antipattern: Shortchanged 181

Antipattern: Hiccup Words 184

Antipattern: Disowning Your Topic 186

Antipattern: Lipstick on a Pig 187

Antipattern: Tower of Babble 188

Antipattern: Bunker 190

Antipattern: Hecklers 191

Antipattern: Going Meta 193

Antipattern: Backchannel 195

Antipattern: Laser Weapons 197

Antipattern: Negative Ignorance 199

Antipattern: Dual-Headed Monster 200

Pattern: Carnegie Hall 204

Pattern: Emotional State 207

Pattern: Breathing Room 208

Pattern: Shoeless 209

Pattern: Mentor 210

Pattern: Weatherman 211

Pattern: Seeding the First Question 214

Pattern: Make It Rain 215

Pattern: Entertainment 216

Pattern: The Stakeout 218

Pattern: Lightsaber 219

Pattern: Echo Chamber 221

Pattern: Red, Yellow, Green 222

Conclusion 225

Patterns Redux 225

Build Your Own . . . 226

Summary 228

Resources 241

Credits 243

Notes 251