Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations

It's also useful for teachers, trainers, and instructors, because the ideas here can help you create a better experience for learners. You can also use these tips to pitch more effectively to clients or investors.

"Show and Tell" is a relatively short book. There are only six chapters, with a total of 260 pages. And, it's highly visual. Every page has illustrations and very short, simple text, so you're going to fly through this. It reads more like a PowerPoint deck than a typical book.

Now, it might sound like the book is overly simplistic, relying so much on images. But this is the author's whole point, and it makes sense that he set up the book this way. His premise is that if you want to create great presentations, then you need to show and tell, just like you might have done in school.

Dan Roam is the founder of Digital Roam, a management consulting company. He's the author of several best-selling books, including "The Back of the Napkin," a Fast Company Best Business Book of the Year, and you can hear our review of that book in a different Book Insight podcast.

So, keep listening to find out how to tell the right kind of truth during your next presentation, how to choose the best storyline for your topic, and how to use pictures to communicate different messages to your audience.

Let's start by looking at the author's three rules for great presentations.

Rule number one: lead with the truth, and the heart will follow. When we tell the truth to our audience we connect with them, we feel more passionate about what we're talking about, and we have more self-confidence.

Rule number two: lead with a story, and understanding will follow. Good stories can help make complex subjects easy to understand. They can also draw everyone in and make a lasting impression.

Rule number three: lead with the eye, and the mind will follow. Using pictures during your presentation helps your audience see exactly what you mean. Pictures captivate their attention, and can prevent boredom.

The author devotes a chapter to each of these rules, so let's take a look at them in greater detail.

Rule number one is to always tell the truth. And, there are different kinds of truths you can use in your presentation.

There's intellectual truth, which you understand with your mind. There's emotional truth, which is what you believe in your heart. And then there's data: facts that are used to convince you that something is true.

In the eyes of the author, not all of these truths are equal. For instance, it's harder to change your mind about something you believe to be true in your heart than something you know to be true in your head.

The author says that a good presentation shares new data. A great presentation changes what we know. And an extraordinary presentation changes what we believe.

Before you start organizing your own presentation, you have to look at each of these three truths, and decide which one you're going to focus on. And the author gives us a simple exercise to help us make the best choice here. He calls it the bucket rule.

Every presentation is made up of three elements: your idea, you, and your audience. Those are your three buckets.

Next, you've got to fill up each of these buckets.

So, in the idea bucket, you're going to put in your thoughts, impressions, data, anecdotes, and ideas. In the bucket that's just for you, put in your goals, hopes, beliefs, worries, and insights. In the bucket for your audience, put in demographics, experience, abilities, skills, hidden agendas, and aspirations.

Now look again at your idea bucket. If you had all the freedom in the world to say exactly what you wanted to say, what would that be?

Next, look at the bucket just for yourself. Who do you most want to be when you share this idea? Are you excited to share it, or not? Are you confident, or unsure? And most importantly, what do you most want your audience to remember about you?

Last, look at your audience bucket. Who are these people? What makes them tick? What are their needs? And most important, if your presentation could change them in just one way, what would that change be?

Now, all these questions are important for helping you understand what you want to communicate. But the bucket exercise can also help you organize your presentation. The author includes a great illustration that shows how answering these questions will help you create a simple outline for your talk. If you're in the planning stages of a presentation, don't miss chapter two.

The second rule in "Show and Tell" is to "lead with a story and understanding will follow." As you might imagine, this chapter is all about how to use stories to help engage your audience and aid understanding.

Picture a cooking show, a commencement address, a sportscast, and a TED Talk. All of these are forms of presentation, but they each suit a different type of story.

The author says that every presentation will suit one of four storylines. These are the report, the explanation, the pitch, and the drama.

Reports communicate facts. Explanations teach new insights or abilities. A pitch recommends a new action or solution. And drama inspires a new belief or way of looking at the world.

Each of these storylines have two things in common. First, they have a beginning and an end. They move. Second, the end point is always higher than the beginning point. Great presentations move up. So, you need to figure out how far and how high you want to take your audience.

According to the author, there are four ways to move your audience.

First, you can change what information they have by adding to something they already know. Second, you can change their knowledge or ability by showing them how to do something useful.

You can change their actions by persuading them to use, try, or buy something new. And last, you can change their beliefs, by inspiring them to understand something new about themselves and the world.

So how do you know which of these storylines is best for your presentation? Ask yourself this: after you've finished presenting, how do you want your audience to be different from when you started? The change you want to see helps determine the storyline you need to use. So, if you want them to try something new, you'll use a pitch storyline.

The author next goes into how to create a general structure for your presentation, based on the storyline you have chosen. He calls his approach PUMA, which stands for Presentation's Underlying Message Architecture. And, the PUMA approach looks like a cat with a head, spine, legs, and tail, each of which represents a different element of your presentation.

We think the PUMA approach is a practical and easy way to help you build a presentation from the ground up. The author's illustrations here do a good job of showing how to use this technique. We also like that the shape of the PUMA is slightly different for each type of storyline.

For example, for a "pitch" storyline, picture a puma with an arched back, in the middle of jumping over a hurdle. This is the basic framework for your pitch presentation.

You have to start with the windup. This is forward momentum of your cat, jumping over a hurdle. Your windup is a quick summary of where you are today.

Next is your hurdle. This is the problem your puma is jumping over, and you need to explain this in detail.

After the hurdle is the vision. This is a seamless, floating arc, kind of like the puma in flight. Here, you want to explain a vision for overcoming the problem.

Next, present some options. The author suggests talking about two options, one which is boring, and one which is inspiring.

During the close, the next stage, your puma is landing. Here you want to explain why the inspiring option is the best one.

You have two options for your puma's final landing place. You can either go over the fine print, or end with a hook that explains one more final benefit. By keeping this jumping puma in mind when you're planning a pitch, you can make sure you cover all the necessary points and give yourself the best chance of success.

Let's take a look at the last rule, which is to tell the story with pictures.

The author starts out this chapter by saying that more of our brain is dedicated to vision than any other known function. And, this includes language. Researchers estimate that one third to one half of our brain activity is devoted to visual processing.

Humans are highly visual creatures, which is why it's so important to use compelling images in your presentation. And, there are six types of pictures that you can use to illustrate any type of story. These align perfectly with our six modes of thinking, one of the tools the author covers in the previous chapter.

They are who/what, how much, where, when, how, and why.

For instance, a portrait can be used to show who or what. A chart can be used to show how much. Maps can be used to show where something is. A timeline is useful for showing a when. Flowcharts show a chain of cause and effect for how. And equations can illustrate a why by showing the moral of the story.

We know that sounds like a lot of different types of pictures to choose from. And fortunately, there's a useful exercise you can do to plan out the pictures that will work best for your presentation.

The author calls it the picture pie.

All you're going to do is draw a circle and divide it up into six equal pieces, just like a pie. In each pie piece, write down one of the six types of pictures: who/what, how much, where, when, how, and why.

Now, think about your presentation's main idea. What's the who or what of your topic? How could you use some type of portrait to show this person or idea?

Keep in mind that a portrait doesn't have to be a picture of a person. It could be something like an architectural plan, a diagram, or a hand-drawn picture.

You want to use a portrait-style picture in your presentation whenever you introduce a new character, group, or object, or whenever that character appears again later on in a different context.

The author goes through the other five types of pictures, and shows you how to fill out the picture pie by planning every picture you'll need to include.

So, what's our last word on "Show and Tell"?

This is a short, punchy book with a lot of good information for the novice and experienced presenter alike. The illustrations are fun and engaging, and make the book really easy to read.

There were some times when we felt it would have been useful to elaborate more on some of the concepts. The book is almost too short, word-wise. But the images and short text do a good job through most of the book, so this isn't a major concern.

We need to mention that the electronic version of this book won't work on all devices. We had a bit of trouble getting it to open on our own devices, so before purchasing the ebook make sure it will work for you.

Another annoyance is that, depending on your device or app, the ebook may or may not come with a working table of contents. Ours didn't, which made navigating the book time-consuming and frustrating. This is one of those books where you might be better off buying the print version, especially if you have an older tablet or e-reader and you don't want to use the Kindle app to read it on your laptop.

Aside from technical glitches, we think the book is well worth your time. It's a quick read, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable. We think there are some great tips and strategies in here that could help make anyone's presentation more engaging and effective.

"Show and Tell" by Dan Roam is published by Portfolio-Penguin.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.