The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

I just finished the Secretes of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo.

Overall, I benefitted from the book and found it had many good points.  However,  I did feel the author repeated himself a few times.  In addition, the book would have benefitted from having direct access to Steve Jobs as to oppose to someone just commenting on his technique.

That being said, I learned a lot about what Steve Jobs that I hope I can apply to next time I give a presentation.  There is no doubt Steve Jobs excels with his presentations!

Rating: 3.75/5

Buy the Book:

Quick Picks

A quick list of my quick picks:

Drive By Daniel Pink-4.5/5

Slide:ology By Nancy Duarte-4.5/5

Influence by Robert Cialdini-4.0/5

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki-4.5/5

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Written by Dale Carnegie this book is renown as aclassic book in its field.  Sometimes when you read a classic you wonder what was all the hype about and others you are like Wow, no wonder it’s a classic.  This book falls into the latter category.  Its truly a remarkable book!  Its full of timeless advise and wisdoms that remain relevant after 70 years.  From the introduction until the final period the book is an exceptional, life altering read.

Key Learning

Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Audience: Everyone

Rating: 5/5

Buy the Book

Trust Agents

Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust.

Authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith offer 7 Characteristics of a trust agent.

The book is organized nicely and is an interesting read.  The authors keep the book generic for the most part trying not to focus on modern technology.  However, they do offer some practical tips to apply now.

Key Learning

Trust is the most significant factor

Golden Advice

Often  with experimentation, the downside is very small, while the possible reward is very large.  So trying something new could you worlds of good.  You could hit upon small, news ways to connect or whole worlds of benefit and profit.

Audience: People who want to make an impact on the web

Rating 4.25/5

Buy the book

Book Review: “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs”

Made to Stick

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die?

This is the topic explored in the book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath entitled “Made to Stick.”

The book was awesome!  Very fun to read and very informative.  The book gives some examples that you will remember from tv commmercials and urban legends.  I loved this book and am waiting for their follow up book called Switch: How to change things when change is hard.

Key Learning:

SUCCCES!

Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concretness, Credibility, Emotional and Stories.

Golden Advice

..the great thing about the world of ideas–any of us, with the right insight and the right message, can make an idea stick

Audience: Anyone who has a message to convey

Rating: 5/5

Buy the Book

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Have you seen the acronym GTD.  Welcome to Getting Things Done by David Allen.

In this book the author presents a methodology to  to have Stress-Free Productivity.  In Summary get things out of your head and record them.  This book is a must!  The methodology is excellent and logical.  It definitely helps keep you organized.  And now with many sofware packages based on GTD such as my favourite Things from Cultured Code.

Once you get using the system, it takes very little extra time and really keeps you on top of things.

Key Learning

Do-It, delegate it, defer it, drop it

Golden Advice

When you start to make things happen, you really begin to believe that you make things happen.  And that makes things happen.  David Allen

Audience: Everyone

Rating: 10/10

Buy the Book