The Extreme Presentation(tm) Method

It's all about presentation impact

The other day I noticed a couple of posts about Advanced Presentations by Design on a blog I hadn't seen before.  The two posts together provide an interesting case study of someone new to the Extreme Presentation method and the impact he achieved with it.

The beginning of the story is rather uninspiring (from my own perspective as the book's author..!).  The blogger bought a copy of APbD, and

... dismissed it initially as a pretty insignificant volume [ouch!] but dragged myself through it [double ouch!] this week as I have a presentation to make ... on Monday.
 
So far I have a lot of pieces of paper with scribbles on them, some cards which vaguely resemble a Best Man speech I gave at a wedding about 10 years ago, and not a PowerPoint or bullet in sight!
 
I’ll let you know how I go but so far I think it might just be crazy enough to work…  (Rob's Higher Ed BI Blog)

The results of his presentation, however, make it all worthwhile:

Informal feedback gathered at the end of the session was really positive and I certainly felt the approach was both different and much more engaging. I noticed that I pretty much held the attention of all those in the room for 30 minutes, there were a flurry of questions at the end and conversation continued over coffee. None of these latter points is typical for me and I put the change down to the method.
 
Abela’s book is very practical and allowed me to develop the presentation step by step on and off over the course of about 4 days without going near a computer screen. If I have to constructively criticise it, I found the approach a little hard going and quite time-consuming to start with although I recognise that will improve with time and that if the end result is successful this justifies the up-front time investment. (Rob's Higher Ed BI Blog) 

There is some good feedback on the SCoRE method for creating a story:

On a personal note, I found the exercise of creating a compelling story cycling through ‘SCoRE’ (situation, complication, resolution, example) was both challenging and helpful in settling my mind on what had and had not been achieved, why this was so and what we had done to move on from that point.

Finally,  the blog highlights what I think is one of the unique points of the book: its solid empirical foundation.  Rather than resting solely on my own experience and judgment, the book is also heavily based on over 200 research studies of relevance to presentations.

The book is heavily referenced and researched and where I found myself mentally challenging some of the assertions I found (in each case) a thoughtfully provided reference to supporting material.

Presenting... Mary Clare

I don't usually post personal material on this blog, but how could I resist:

Our little Mary Clare was born on Saturday evening (November 29) at 6:23 p.m., after holding out until the last minute (she was 2 weeks overdue), and weighing in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. Wonderfully healthy and peaceful, and the delight of her brothers and sisters.