Aaron U. Bolin, Ph.D.

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work by Dan Roam (List Price: $29.95; 2011 Portfolio/Penguin) This book actually delivers on the title promise. Dan Roam provides an application-oriented structure to turn weakly-presented ideas into really elegant communication tools. If you've read the Back of the Napkin  or Beyond the Back of the Napkin , then you'll recognize his engaging style that mixes text with oddly compelling simple drawings. In Blah Blah Blah, he extends his earlier work and reinforces the same basic message: words go better with pictures. I am a fan, and I really liked the overall book. In terms of criticism, the presentation felt a little padded in some parts -- saying in 5 pages what could be said in 5 words. I also missed the exercises that Roam included in his other volumes. In this book, readers are more passive; the text was less interactive. This book would be useful to anyone who routinely presents information: teachers, executives, stu

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte (list price: $34.99; O'Reilly Media, Inc.) slide:ology is designed as a reasonably comprehensive how-to guide on creating compelling visual material for presentations, promotional materials, and stories. The book is an easy read and visually very appealing. With a list price of $34.99, I found the book to be a very affordable introduction to the world of the graphic designer. I bought the book at a time when I was struggling to depict a very technically complex manpower planning system in a way that was intuitively understandable. As I worked through the illustrated 260 page volume, I found myself nodding my head throughout. That is, Duarte's expertise shines through as she provides a very good basic structure for presentation design. This book was useful to me in my work; I incorporated some of her recommendations into the presentation that I was building. From a critical perspective, I can&