The Mobile Presenter

Story Proof: The Science behind the startling Power of Story by Kendall Haven

Whether you are preparing a presentation or trying to sharpen the marketing message of your product or business - when looking for advice, you will soon come across the recommendation to try storytelling. Stories, it seems, help your audience to better understand and remember whatever it is you are trying to tell them.

But do stories really work and if they do, why do they work? All the books and articles on the topic of storytelling that I've found so far only quote anecdotal evidence. Yes, it does seem to work, but there's this nagging feeling that the effect of stories is not quite confirmed yet, which leaves you asking for definitive proof.

That proof is finally here, in the form of the book Story Proof by Kendall Haven.

15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations by Joey Asher

This book is strictly aimed at business presentations. For those, the approach must seem pretty radical: Your presentation should take no longer than seven minutes - the rest (of the 15 minutes) is for Q&A.

The author proposes a rather rigid format for those presentations. That's necessary, so that you can keep that time limit and also as a guideline for the presenter to cope with the requirements of this approach.

The Non-Designers Presentation Book: Principles for effective presentation design by Robin Williams

Robin Williams (not to be confused with the actor) is the author of the classic The Non-Designers Design Book that I recommend when you want to learn about the basics of design. As the name suggests, The Non-Designers Presentation Book is a variation of that book focusing on presentation design.

HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations by Nancy Duarte

The format of the book feels a little odd when you are used to the huge footprint of Nancy's other books. But actually, the format is a good metaphor for the content: It's cut down to the essentials.

Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo

As the title suggests, the book describes games that can be used for brainstorming and related activities. Included are games to evaluate the results of a traditional brainstorming session, how to decide on the next actions, but also a lot of more complex games for very specific tasks.