How to Make an Impact: Influence, Inform and Impress With Your Reports, Presentations and Business Documents

by Jon Moon

Clear information shows clear thinking, and clear thinking informs, influences and impresses. How often do you stare at uninviting and confusing presentations, notes, reports and information packs and get nothing out of them? It doesn't have to be like this. We could all produce amazingly clear work that has incredible impact if only we knew how. This book shows you how. It is full of ideas, tips and principles that are simple and easy to implement, yet brilliantly effective.You will never look at a business document in the same way again. And your work will impress the people that matter and get the results you want. It guides you through the most effective ways of using all forms of presenting information - tables, charts, slides, flowcharts, etc. Moon also introduces the new WiT (Words in Tables) approach to give impact to your message on all documents and slides. I love Jon's work. His tips are hugely useful, his WiT fantastic and ground-breaking, and his book essential reading. If

Genres: Business, Design, Management, Communication, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Bersi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful book to learn clear visual communication of text, especially for people that work primarily with text or data documents

[Steven De Landtsheer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is simply a very practical book on creating an ‘impact’ with documents you create. The author has compiled his knowledge and experience in clearly focused chapters. Although I set out to ‘read’ the book, I novices that once you understand his approach, you start skimming through the pages. The advice is still solid but will prove it’s value when you apply it. This is one of these books that I will certainly use as a reference.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read on an unusual topic

Jon Moon knows what he's talking about and I like his approach for clear and simple design.

All his tips captured in the book are good advice, I will be implementing many and I will be paying more attention to documents/slides created by other people now that I better understand good and bad design practises.

If you want your reports / slides to stand out and look more professional this is well worth reading.

[Manuel Frias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book to improve document design skills. I didn't totally agree with some ideas regarding graphs and presentations though.

If you don't want to read the best books about presentations (Reynolds, Duarte), document design (Jean-Luc Doumont), graphs (Few) or general basic design (R. Williams) this can be a good start.

[Steve Whiting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really good ideas here - Moon shows how to present information intelligibly and appropriately, taking (many) potshots at unclear graphs, meandering text and 'death by bullet-point'.

His "Words in Tables" focus will be very familiar to anyone who has done Information Mapping training - which is no bad thing.

I think the coverage is rather better for reports and handouts than presentations - some of his ideas make for rather wordy slides, but that's a minor cavill.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick Read - good examples of effective presentation techniques.

[Piotr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of the books are excellent, most of them are repetitive

[Anita Ashland · Rating 5 out of 5]

An indispensable reference for bringing a design approach to spreadsheets and reports.