File > New > Presentation: Presentation Skills for Software Developers and Other Technical Professionals

If you’re anything like me, you’ve experienced far too many presentations in the IT industry that fail to connect with the audience and never achieve what they set out to do. Presentations that reel off facts, yet don’t tell a story. Presentations that are overwhelmed with pages of text and bullet points. Presentations that show diagrams that no one understands. Presentations that go well under- or overtime, and are clearly not rehearsed. Presentations where demos routinely fail in front of packed crowds. All delivered by presenters who make numerous mistakes while they are on stage.

File > New > Presentation was written to give you the tools and techniques to avoid these pitfalls, and dramatically increase your presentation skills. These skills go well beyond just creating a slide deck, and include understanding your audience, planning the structure of your talk, rehearsing, delivering demos, preparation, and improving what you do behind the podium. With recommendations targeted towards software developers and other technical professionals, you’ll gain the knowledge to take your next presentation – and maybe even your career – to the next level.

"Essential reading for software developers everywhere" -Tim Marshall, Chief Technology Officer. Neudesic, LLC

"File > New > Presentation is a treasure trove of sound advice, solid experience, and, above all, practical steps for designing, creating, preparing for, and making outstanding technical presentations. Simon Guest is a technical presenter and here he has distilled his experience spanning more than two decades, presenting, and watching and working alongside other great presenters, into a wonderfully readable, easily approachable book." -Stuart Celarier, Microsoft Regional Director, Microsoft MVP, Speaker, Consultant

Simon Guest is a prominent speaker in the software industry, whose 20-year career has run the gamut from 1:1 presentations with Bill Gates to onstage talks to many thousands of people, and almost everything in between. His presentations are consistently highly rated by attendees at leading industry conferences, and on two occasions he has been inducted to Sun Microsystems' Speaker Wall of Fame.

As well as having the opportunity to speak in countries covering almost every continent across the world, Simon has been fortunate to witness some of the best speakers in the industry-stories from whom are retold within this book. This, together with organizing and running one of the tracks for a Microsoft worldwide conference, has given him unique insight into what it takes to design and deliver a professional technical presentation that stands out from the pack.