Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

May 1, 2008

I finally took the time (long overdue) to read Garr Reynolds’ excellent book on presentation design, Presentation Zen. For those of you unfamiliar with Garr Reynolds, he is the proprietor of the like-named (and likewise excellent) blog on presentation design. I’m a great fan of his blog, so it should be no surprise I am also a great fan of his book.

Since my profession is primarily in eLearning design - not sales, marketing, or classroom instruction - I found myself mentally replacing the words “presentation” and “PowerPoint” with “eLearning” as I read the book. And in doing so found that the content remained right on the money.

In fact, if Garr were to do a quick Find & Replace, he could resend his manuscript to the printer, entitle it eLearning Zen, and have another winner on his hands (I’ll take a mere 20% for the concept, Garr).

Sidenote: I could easily have called my own blog eLearning Zen, as my despair about eLearning so closely matches Garr’s despair about presentations. But hey, shameless derivatives just ain’t my style, baby.

The derision, rage, and scorn subtly (and not-so-subtly) directed at PowerPoint presentations throughout this book echo my feelings about the vast majority of eLearning I have encountered. The PowerPoint-induced fuming of millions is beautifully illustrated via some short quotes by some well-known luminaries in the tech world.

Utilizing the aforementioned Find & Replace technique, allow me the liberty of tailoring these quotes to befit the eLearning scourge:

“eLearning could be the most powerful tool on your computer, but it’s not. It’s actually a dismal failure. Almost every eLearning course sucks rotten eggs.” - Seth Godin

“Stop your eLearning before it kills again.” - Kathy Sierra

“eLearning Is Evil.” - Wired Magazine

Dr. Michael Allen, at TechKnowledge in San Antonio, actually said (no Find & Replace required here):

“90% of eLearning should be thrown away.”

90%???

He was being kind.

My own disgust with the pitiful state of eLearning rose to the top of my throat today as I was subjected to yet another horrible iteration. The Powers That Be within my organization have seen fit to bestow me with some meager funds with which to purchase some much-needed software for eLearning development. Things never being as simple as they should be, I’m required to input my request using an unknown internal online ordering system (one that is sure to be hopelessly complex and unintuitive). But before I can do so, I’m required to take an eLearning course that will explain the use of this system.

Yes, alarm bells were already sounding in my head.

One hour later, I had managed to navigate my way through possibly the most mind-numbingly inept eLearning course I have ever experienced (and that’s saying a lot). Screen after screen of image-free text explaining the background, history, and, almost as an afterthought, the actual use of the system. All told, 99% of the content was irrelevant to me as a new user trying to input a simple software request.

Were there any screenshots? No. Demos? Uh uh. Simulations? Nope. But hey, it did include a few silly “knowledge checks” thrown in to add a little variety to my misery!

A one-page Word document that could be read in 5 minutes would have been much more effective.

Note: I still don’t know how to use the online ordering system.

The irony of being tortured with horrible eLearning in order to purchase the tools to create good eLearning was not lost on me.

And the banner in the default template used in this course taunted me with the slogan “E-Learning: A new way of learning…”

Sorry, this wasn’t learning. And this definitely wasn’t a “new way.” This was everything bad about teaching wrapped up in a mess of HTML, javascript, duct tape and twine.

Yet again we sabotage our efforts to convert learners to eLearning by dumping a worthless product on them and proclaiming it The Future.

Bah.

But I digress. I’ll speak more on this self-destructive habit (that of talking up bad eLearning) in a future post.

My venting complete, I return now to the topic at hand: Presentation Zen (the book), by Garr Reynolds.

Buy it. Read it. Apply it to your eLearning design.

Please!

Posted in Books, Rants, eLearning Design