The Benshi

Dorie and I traveled to the Bay Area to spend a few hours with Nancy Duarte. She’s the bestselling author of two books on communication for the business world, CEO of her own company with 100 employees, and pretty much the top expert on how to give a good presentation. Oh, yeah, she’s also a lot of fun!

THE BEST OF THE BEST. TOP: First there was Powerpoint, then there was Nancy Duarte, author of the bestselling, “Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences.” BOTTOM LEFT: Everybody’s dream — your name in six foot tall letters in the lobby of your building, BOTTOM RIGHT: The two page spread she did in her 2010 book, “Resonate,” on, “Randy Olson’s Four Organs of Communication.”

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SEE YOUR FUTURE, BE YOUR FUTURE

Remember that little movie Al Gore did in 2006 about global warming. When it came time to make sure he had the coolest possible graphics, he turned to Nancy Duarte. In 2008 she published, “Slide:ology.” My thoughts on that book, and her next one (“Resonate”) is what I saw a reviewer say on her Amazon page, “Read this book, stay away from Edward Tufte.”

Couldn’t agree more with that comment. I remember looking at Tufte’s books long ago and thinking, “Gee, cool illustrations, but … how do you actually use this stuff.” Duarte’s books combine both the style AND the substance of how you actually apply what she’s advocating.

And that explains her enormous success in the business world. Her company makes over $20 million a year and her TEDx talk has gathered over a million views. She is kind of the gold standard for presentation skills. And best of all, she’s really smart and fun to talk with. I’d been wanting to meet her since 2010 when she included two pages in “Resonate” about my book, so last week when Dorie and I were in the Bay Area for other stuff we scheduled to stop by for a couple hours chat. She’s as great as her books.