Most Americans either fear public speaking or do not know how to properly give a presentation. Get To The Point gives many helpful insights to the many aspects of presenting your points in the best light.

Very often, the average audience member comes away with 10% of the content of a speech. Get To The Point helps the presentator maximize that 10% and maybe even icnrease it. Authors Berg and Gillman emphasize the importance of getting to know your aduience from many points of view. Know your relationship to the audience and the aduience within itself. From there, a good presentor will use clear concise jargon and possibly throw a few key buzzwords for effect. The importance of a conservative dress code as well as a confident animated matter are also emphasized.

Many other key details are explored such as the types of questioners at a presentation such as the fillibuster. Gillman and Berg detail well how to deal with this type of personality as well as how to handle yourself when interrupted. The conservative approach is very level headed.

Other topics such as meetings, job interviews, and introducing speakers are discussed in detail. Special effects in presentations are also discussed. Because this book was written before the invention of PowerPoint, many fo the visual aid examples are a bit out of date. However, the bottom line point illustrating that the speaker makes the presentation rather than the effects, still overrides any technology advances taht Get To The Point does not incorporate.

To summarize: Get To The Point meets its mark and will help out budding speakings greatly.

Gilman and Berg achieve two primary objectives: They help their reader to determine, first, what the most important "point" is; then, they help the reader to "get" to it ASAP with clarity and precision. The same principles of the program are relevant to every situation in which there is a need to communicate but it is important to note that this is not a "how to" book for those who need help preparing and then presenting formal speeches. "Rather, we are referring to the relatively short and informal talks with clearly defined objectives that take place most often in a work-related context." The authors prefer the word "presentations" to "speeches" as in a one-on-one situation in which someone must persuade her or his supervisor to make a certain approval decision or take a specific action. I think this book is very well organized. The authors have dozens of key points which they get to in exemplary fashion. Their approach is practical rather than theoretical, based on many years of real-world experience with training all manner of persons who needed to understand how to say what they meant inorder to get what they wanted. Although most of the examples in the book are in a business context, the lessons to be learned are also relevant to presentations elsewhere, such as a committee report to members of a church, a briefing to members of a social organization, or participation in a "Career Day" program at a school. The authors also explain "How to Introduce a Speaker" (Chapter 24). In earlier chapters, they offer some excellent advice on other subjects such as "Clothing: What the Well-Dressed Presenter Wears", "Picture Perfect Videoconferencing", and "The Job Interview." For many people, this may well be the most valuable book they read during the next 12 months.

This book tells it like it is. How to get the point across to various audiences using a variety of media. This book must be in every executive's library.