Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook

I attend and speak at a lot of tech conferences. Over time, I noticed that some presentations work better than others. This triggered me to look into the theory behind presentations, especially since nobody ever told me how to do it - I was only copying what everybody else seemed to be doing.

Eventually, I came across Garr Reynolds and his Presentation Zen approach. These days, you can see more and more highly visual presentations, obviously inspired by the Presentation Zen way, being given at conferences - but mostly for keynotes and other non-technical talks.

The typical tech talk in 2012, however, is still dominated by bullet points. But it doesn't have to be this way. Part of the motivation for the blog you're reading was to help spread the message There is a better way to do presentations! to the tech and geek communities, which led to the "Presenting for Geeks" workshops, which led to "Presenting for Geeks" - The Ebook.

So I am very happy to announce that my first ebook, Presenting for Geeks, is now available for purchase from the Amazon Kindle Store (US, UK, Germany), the Apple iBookstore (US, UK, Germany) and from Google play.

New: For those of you who would rather buy the book without DRM, you can now also get it via Ganxy in both epub and mobi format.

As the title suggests, this book is mainly aimed at the average techie or geek who needs to give a presentation about a technical topic. The basics discussed in the book are applicable to any type of presentation, but it does also cover geek-specific topics such as presenting source code and running software demos in a terminal window.

Presenting for Geeks doesn't offer a completely new approach to presentations. Instead, it brings the concepts that have already been proven to work in other contexts to the world of tech presentations. Presentation Zen is often misunderstood and reduced to use photos. In this book, I'll show you that the approach goes beyond that and that it is perfectly applicable to technical presentations.

The geek community has already noticed the trend towards more visual presentations. Some speakers have embraced the idea and others are starting to copy it but haven't fully grokked the concept yet. I see Presenting for Geeks as my small contribution to this ongoing move towards more engaging, more visual technical presentations. My dream is that in a few years from now, we can attend a technical presentation and expect not to be bothered by slide upon slide filled with bullet points. Let's make it happen - we're not that far off.

P.S. Both Amazon and iBooks will let you download an excerpt from the book's beginning, so that you can "try before you buy". Also, JAXenter posted an excerpt from chapter 3, What to do when things go wrong.

Creative Commons Licence "Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook" by Dirk Haun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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[...] blog post on Boundaries. How and why to set boundaries with our loved ones. Dirk Haun wrote his first ebook, Presenting for Geeks , based on a presentation course of the same name, which in turn used the principles he learned from the Power [...] [read more]
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[...] of online medium to move the discussion to. This is also my first public talk since the release of my ebook Presenting for Geeks , so there is of course a little bit of pressure to deliver a good presentation :) If you are at FOSDEM, come by [...] [read more]
Tracked on Tuesday, January 15 2013 @ 11:00 CET

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[...] and your slides are not separate entities. (This article is based on a piece that I originally wrote for the Presenting for Geeks book but that didn't make the cut. Photo: Laser pointer, iStockphoto file #2699367) Trackback Trackback URL for [...] [read more]
Tracked on Thursday, February 07 2013 @ 11:01 CET

Ein paar einfache Blogging-Tipps - Dirks Hirnableiter
[...] kann. Regelmäßig schreiben Das ist etwas, was für mich auch den Reiz am Ironblogging ausmacht: Ich hatte mir für mein Buch angewöhnt, mich jeden Morgen hinzusetzen und wenigstens für 15-30 Minuten zu schreiben. Nachdem das Buch nun fertig [...] [read more]
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On the use of Humour in Presentations - The Mobile Presenter
[...] topic, don't try to force humour on to it. (This article is another out-take that didn't make it into the Presenting for Geeks book. The photo was taken at TEDxStuttgart, (c) Michael M. Roth, MicialMedia) Trackback Trackback URL for this [...] [read more]
Tracked on Tuesday, February 26 2013 @ 11:19 CET

Die Geburtshelfer - 3 Jahre Coworking Stuttgart - Dirks Hirnableiter
[...] für eine ferne Zukunft herum - und wurde dann doch viel schneller Wirklichkeit als gedacht. Meine Kurse und mein E-Book sind meine eigene Leistung, aber sie basieren natürlich auf der Vorarbeit anderer ("Väter" und "Mütter"). Dem Coworking [...] [read more]
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[...] of the Presentation Zen approach, the concepts weren't too different from what I teach in my own courses (or my book ). It confirmed some of my views, added interesting tweaks here and there, and even challenged my approach in one or two [...] [read more]
Tracked on Sunday, March 17 2013 @ 17:01 CET

Taking "Presenting for Geeks" on the Road - The Mobile Presenter
[...] it should be free. Is the content the same as in the book? There is quite a bit of overlap, yes. The workshop and the ebook were created more or less in parallel. A workshop requires a different approach, though, so it's not strictly [...] [read more]
Tracked on Tuesday, April 16 2013 @ 10:38 CEST

Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook | 4 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook
Authored by: RNKLN on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 21:58 CET

Good idea. Bought the book in the Dutch iBookstore.

Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook
Authored by: Dirk on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 22:06 CET

Thank you :) Let us know how you like it.

Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook
Authored by: RNKLN on Sunday, March 17 2013 @ 18:26 CET

Hi Dirk,

Finally found some time to actually read the book. I liked it very much. It's a nice concise book that highlights many of the topics covered in more detail in the Presentation Zen books, Made to Stick and more. Certainly it is value for money, in my opinion.

Ronald

Presenting for Geeks - The Ebook
Authored by: Dirk on Sunday, March 17 2013 @ 21:57 CET

Ronald, thanks for the feedback. Glad you liked it :)