entertainment center: Top 35 Presentation Books: Expert Ratings

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Analysis and Participants

From the analysis summary:

We wondered:

?What do the top presentation experts in the world read??

They told us. We asked 7 of the top presentation experts in the world to tell us what books most inspired them to be better presenters. Seven judges, including four published authors, provided feedback to a list of books. We present, for your consideration, their ranked list of the top 35 presentation books.

Survey analysis was performed by Gonzalo ?lvarez?and Bruce Gabrielle. Their methodology and full results can be found in the embedded document later in this article. Thanks to both of them for leading this effort!
Judges were:

Summary of the Results

A word of caution about the full ratings:
- It?s very difficult to quantitatively compare speaking books, particularly when those books excel in very different ways.
- Books were scored according to their presentation focus along several criteria (content, structure, visual design, delivery). The total of the individual scores was used to rank the books overall.
- These totals can be misleading as they reward books with a very broad focus (books that touch on many speaking skills), and penalize books with a narrow focus. As an example, books like Made to Stick or The Story Factor?(which are both excellent books which focus almost entirely on storytelling) receive low overall scores.
21 books have a content/delivery focus; 14 focus on visuals.
- Each of these two groups are listed in the tables below.
Most books (31 out of 35) are rated 4 out of 5 stars or higher?by amazon.com readers.
- The ?Amazon Rating? column in the tables below gives the ?stars? ranking and the number of reader reviews.
Most books (27 out of 35) are priced between $14 and $28. Four books are less than $14, and one book is over $28. Three books are no longer carried by amazon, so no price is given.
14 have been reviewed on Six Minutes ? more to come.
- Links to these reviews are given in the tables below.
- Most of the remaining 21 books are on my personal wishlist, so it?s quite likely you?ll be seeing reviews for some of them in the future.

Books with a Content/Delivery Focus

Books with a Focus on Visuals

The Full Ratings Data

If you do not see the embedded document below, please visit the web version of this article.

How about you? Which are your favorites?

How many of these 35 have you read? Which ones do you like most? Why? Which book(s) would you add to the list?

Please share in the comments. I?d love to hear from you.

This is one of many public speaking articles featured on Six Minutes.
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Andrew Dlugan ?is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

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