Presentation Skills for Technical Professionals

Expert advice for technical professionals looking to improve their presentation skills

Your technical skills and professional expertise are evidence of your ability to accomplish difficult tasks. Strong presentation skills can help you further advance your career. The ability to present articulately to customers, management, peers and others can significantly enhance your credibility, clout, and professional status. Delivering presentations at work or professional events is an unbeatable way to gain a reputation as a valued employee and an expert in your field.

If you have ever tried to get out of giving a presentation because of nerves, or if you feel there is room for improvement in your presentation techniques, then Presentation Skills for Technical Professionals is for you.

Invaluable tips

This book gives you invaluable tips on how to make your presentation clear and accessible, how to interact with your audience and how to retain their interest while keeping your anxiety under control. Naomi Karten has used her vast experience — both positive and negative — on the front lines of public speaking to provide key advice (and many chuckles!) in this engrossing read for the technical professional.

By following the advice contained this book, you can take the stress out of the exercise and start delivering presentations that will engage your audience and make your ideas and arguments memorable.

Read this book and:

• Make your presentation easy to absorb - This book shows you how to structure your information and ideas to ensure you communicate your message to your audience.
• Learn the pitfalls to avoid - However much time you have put into preparing the presentation, if you irritate your audience you can ruin all your hard work. This book reminds you of the bad habits, like mumbling or speaking in clichés, which you need to avoid if you want to make a good impression.
• Use PowerPoint effectively - Presentations are often let down by slides which are dull or cluttered. Over-reliance on PowerPoint can mean that the slides become the focal point of the presentation, instead of helping to make what you are saying easier to grasp. This book shows you how to make intelligent use of PowerPoint. Presenting text in small chunks and using a readable type size are two simple ways to keep your audience listening.
• Deliver successful presentations to managers and customers - Different audiences require different approaches. This book contains essential advice on how to deliver presentations both to high-ranking executives and to customers. Get to the point, and satisfy your superiors. Speak the customer’s own language, and you are more likely to make the sale.

 Read the foreword for this book

'If you’re only going to read the first paragraph of this review, I will share the bottom line. If you get up in front of people, real or virtual, buy Presentation Skills for Technical Professionals: Achieving Excellence. Assuming you read at least one part of the book, you will have the tools to raise your game as a presenter ... Buy it, read it, use it as a reference.'

 -Tom Cagley, Editor at Software Process and Measurement Cast; Review taken from Podcast 117

'A Thorough and Dynamic Book No Technical Professional Should Be Without … As a professional speaker and writer myself, I was amazed at the amount of detail, Naomi delivers with as much pizazz as necessary to grip this audience … She has given us all the nuances, answers all our questions, provides exceptions to the rules, all manner of presenting scenarios and situations, and does it in an entertaining way. It's the kind of book you will keep going back to just to feel good about a presentation you have coming up...'

- Jack Shaw, Amazon review

'Great book! It discusses virtually all aspects and levels of the presentation process ... it describes the basics, discusses finding your voice, provides advice on speaker anxiety, and outlines the attributes of good and bad presentations. From a seasoned speaker's perspective like myself, I found a wonderful combination of quick tips, reminders of important presentation fundamentals, a "Presenter Survival Kit checklist" that I now keep with my presentation bag and great insights when presenting to management, customers, foreign audiences, and in other similar scenarios.'

- Eric P. Bloom, Author of Manager Mechanics