Propose, Prepare, Present

Appendix A. Further Reading

Hopefully, you now have some insight into the mind of an event organizer and into how conferences are run. This is just the beginning: there are plenty of excellent books on speaking techniques, slide design, and creating great stories. Here are just a few:

• Slideology, Nancy Duarte’s excellent book on presentation design. Nancy also says plenty of smart things on her blog, http://blog.duarte.com/

• Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is perhaps one of the best marketing books of the last decade. It tackles being memorable and interesting as well as avoiding jargon and the curse of too much knowledge. It should be required reading for anyone setting foot on a stage. Find out more at http://www.heathbrothers.com/madetostick/

• Confessions of a Public Speaker (http://www.speakerconfessions.com/) by Scott Berkun gives you an inside look at what it’s like to speak for a living. Scott’s blog (http://www.scottberkun.com/) is a great resource.

• Solve for Interesting (http://solveforinteresting.com/category/good-conference/) is where I write about a variety of things; the Good Conferences category focuses on running events that don’t suck.

• Ignite (http://www.igniteshow.com) and TED (http://www.ted.com) are filled with great examples of excellent presentations on compelling topics in five to twenty minutes.