Great Work Interview: Garr Reynolds, author of ‘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 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 we 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
