Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen

Garr Reynold and Nancy Duarte are the two people who’ve done the most to change how presentations work in organizations today. Garr’s book Presentation Zen and his excellent blog, also named Presentation Zen help to champion a style of presentation that is to the point, elegant, has an impact and is beautiful to boot. A selection of his interests – and I love this list – includes: “beautiful design, philosophy, branding, great presentations (and doing my part to help rid the world of boring, ineffective, ridiculously bad, amateurish PowerPoint presentations) Zen in daily life, the Blues, playing the drums, Japanese pop music (save SMAP and Ayumi Hamasaki, of course), Japanese traditional music, Okinawa music, Plato, American college football (especially Oregon State Univ.), Earth Wind & Fire, early morning coffee, reading or working in a downtown café and learning something new everyday.” Garr lives in Japan and is the Associate Professor of Management at Kansai Gaidai University.

In this interview, Garr and I chat about:

• The paradox of restrictions as a form of liberation
• Why “Failure is not an option”
• The strategy of “plus alpha” to help do more Great Work
• Why pen and paper can often trump using a computer
• And the role of elegance in design

You can follow Garr on Twitter at @PresentationZen and on his blog at Presentation Zen.com or check out his website Garr Reynolds.

Listen to my interview with Garr Reynolds

0:16    Michael introduces Garr Reynolds
0:31    Garr’s book Presentation Zen
6:47    The paradox of restrictions as a form of liberation
8:10    Why “Failure is not an option”
11:55   The role of elegance in design
14:49   The strategy of “plus alpha” to help do more Great Work
17:25   Garr’s secret for keeping it all together
23:54   Why pen and paper can often trump using a computer
29:47   How to find out more about Garr Reynolds
30:31   Michael closes the interview

If you enjoyed this post, you'll also like:

1. Nancy Duarte, Slide:ology
2. Three reasons why you should care about design (and five people to listen to this week)
3. Dan Roam, The Back of the Napkin