You should check out presentationzen.com.

It's good stuff. Before Cliff published his book, he sold a litle tool kit on his web site, which I purchased. After I bought it, he emailed me and offered to work on my prez with me. Basically free 1-on-1 consulting. Now I'm integrating ideas into a workbook I'm creating for presenting entrepreneurs at a local angel group here...

Thanks for reminding me about Cliff's book and what a resource it is for business people. I used his method recently - from start to finish - and was gratified at the response I got from the audience. I also noticed that they spent more time focussed on me rather than the screen.

Great new ideas on how to give a presentation? Not really
Vegas entertainment but on a serious subject -- MONEY, in
business, with a big role for high technology?

Hmm .... Let me see, should I already know anything about
such presentations? Should nearly anyone giving or listening
to such a presentation already know?

Well, commonly the people involved, giving or receiving, have
spent some decades sitting in a class receiving serious
presentations and some years at the front of a class giving
such presentations. In all that experience, in the world's
best research universities from Berkeley to Harvard, from
Chicago to Austin, all across the US Midwest, along both
coasts, also in the laboratories of US national security, out
on Long Island at Stony Brook and at the current Renaissance
Technologies, in classes, seminars, conferences, there is a
lot of uniformity in what constitutes a good presentation.

Now, suddenly, for entrepreneurs and the venture capital
community we have to set aside all that we learned, both
giving and receiving, over so many years, stand on our heads,
and start over, learning from whom? With what fantastically
superior qualifications?

First I would want to see his Ph.D. dissertation, peer
reviewed papers of original research in some technical field,
and student comments on his graduate school lectures in some
technical field.

Sigma - I couldn't disagree with you more. I've sat through numerous academic presentations at several of the first tier schools that you presumably are referring to, and I've seen some of the most abysmal presentations ever from academics. As a grad student, I even got to take an entire course on "communications" (which included detailed instructions on giving presentations) - not much better. Just because someone has years of experience giving or receiving a presentation doesn't mean they are any good at it.

Brad,

"My goodness!"

You wrote, "I've seen some of the most abysmal presentations
ever from academics." and "Just because someone has years of
experience giving or receiving a presentation doesn't mean
they are any good at it." Of course. There is no conflict
here with what I wrote.

To be more clear, from the "uniformity in what constitutes a
good presentation" there are some solid norms, and, in the
best parts of the US technical community, over 90% of the
presentations are within the norms and plenty effective.
Asking very well trained technical people to throw out the
norms and start over is not reasonable.