{"id":774,"date":"2010-10-22T16:53:07","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T15:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=774"},"modified":"2010-10-22T16:53:07","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T15:53:07","slug":"resonate-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/resonate-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Resonate Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
This might be the shortest book review ever: the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Resonate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – and it does.<\/p>\n

Anything else I say or add is just detail tinkering around the edges.<\/p>\n

Nancy Duarte describes Resonate as a prequel to her first book Slide:ology: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written less to show people how to design their slides and more to help people figure out how to design their presentations. \u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big job.<\/p>\n

I must admit I was very flattered indeed when I got an email asking if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like a copy of Resonate to review – so obviously I said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153yes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. \u00c2\u00a0As if Nancy Duarte needed my approval! It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take long to arrive (from America) and I hastily tore into it – much to the annoyance of the people around me I was supposed to be doing boring administrative jobs alongside!<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an odd shape and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit into my shelves – and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s floppy, so it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t handle easily – but to be honest, if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m complaining about that kind of thing you can probably tell how much I liked the content. \u00c2\u00a0No book is ever perfect and there are bits and pieces I think could be slightly different but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not far in before the gems keep coming. I routinely tell me clients that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not about them, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about their audience so you can probably imagine my delight at the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcto whom it may concern\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of thing we like, here!<\/p>\n

I must admit there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not too much new to me here – in fact I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be worried if there was, given what I do for a living – but the way Ms Duarte puts it together is clear and accessible. The sequence of images on pages 142 and 143, for example, put into a clear perspective one way (a great way!) of designing a presentation… what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, it does it with so few words (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not counted but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d guess it to be under a hundred, looking at the pages) that it makes the point beautifully. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, even though I say there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not too much new, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly enough to keep my attention! (Which is more than I can say for a couple of books I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read recently! ;) \u00c2\u00a0).<\/p>\n

Case studies help with that. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always a sucker for seeing things in action. \u00c2\u00a0If I have to pick a point to critisize with this book, it would be that just occasionally (and I really do mean just occasionally) it goes a little over-board with proving a point – taking the time to illustrate what one means is great but I only need to see it once (perhaps twice to prove it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a fluke) but not half a dozen times…. but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardly the end of the world and I can always just turn the page :)<\/p>\n

All in all? \u00c2\u00a0A damn fine piece of work. \u00c2\u00a0Given how successful Ms Duarte is, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t suppose she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll care much either way what I think but – for what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth – I wish I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d written it.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This might be the shortest book review ever: the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Resonate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – and it does. Anything else I say or add is just detail tinkering around the edges. Nancy Duarte describes Resonate as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-blog-related","category-reviews-case-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}