Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen & Book Publishing

Date: February 15, 2010
Place: International House of Japan
Subject: Presentation Zen & Book Publishing

Want to hone your communication skills and get your point across in the most effective way possible? Got an idea for a book, but aren’t sure how to put all the pieces together? Wondering what it’s like to work with a publisher and how much control you’re likely to have over the final product? This month’s “Combination Plate” seminar offers you valuable insights from several perspectives—author, editor, designer, translator and publisher.

We’re expecting a crowd for these fun, interactive, and wisdom-filled presentations, so we’ve rented the hall at I-House where Donald Richie used to screen Kurosawa films and lecture on Japanese cinema.
NOTE: Garr Reynolds is coming up from Kansai and has to leave right after his talk, so we hope you’ll get there early to network. Doors open at 6:30, and the show begins at 7:00 p.m. Feel free to invite all your friends to this rare opportunity to learn from award-winning pros who make working with words even more fun and challenging.

Combination Plate #1: “How to Think Like a Designer (And Why It Matters)”

Garr Reynolds says regular businesspeople can learn a lot from designers, and from thinking like a designer. In his visual and highly interactive presentation, he’ll set out ten fundamental design principles and go in-depth with examples and before/after samples. Although the context is graphic design and presentation, the design lessons for managers are applicable to much more than a simple PowerPoint show.

“This is not about dressing up presentations or decorating slides,” Garr says, “but about understanding and embracing concrete design principles that will make your presentations and other forms of communication clearer, more powerful, and memorable.”

About Garr Reynolds: Lauded internationally by design and business professionals, Garr is the author of the international best-selling book Presentation Zen. Now available in 14 languages, including Japanese, Presentation Zen was the #3 book among Amazon.com’s Top-10 Business Books for 2008, and #45 overall in the Amazon Top 100. Garr also runs a popular website called presentationzen.com that features regular insights on presentations, design and creativity. A writer, designer and musician, he is currently an associate professor of management at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka and speaks to firms such as Microsoft, Google, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, P&G, and many more worldwide. In previous lives, Garr managed worldwide user group relations for Apple Inc., and spent most of the nineties as a corporate trainer for Sumitomo Electric Industries in Osaka. His newest work, Presentation Zen Design, came out in January, and he’ll be bringing along several copies to give away.

Combination Plate #2: “Say What? Writing the Ultimate Phrasebook for a Japanese Publisher”

“I’m so fired up about this!” How do you say that in fluent Japanese? Chances are there are hundreds of native-level exclamations and expressions you’d love to roll off the tip of your tongue, but are you certain your phrasing is flawless? Kit Pancoast Nagamura and Kyoko Tsuchiya wrote The Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook (Kodansha International) to ensure that you are, giving you 1,800 phrases from four different angles. Kit and Kyoko will tell us how their book took shape, describe the trials, tribulations, hilarities and revelations involved in producing the manuscript, and offer a candid overview of book production ins and outs at a major publishing house.

About Kit Pancoast Nagamura: Prize-winning, internationally published fiction writer and photojournalist Kit Nagamura visited Japan on a fellowship from Brown University and landed in Tokyo after earning her Ph.D. in literature in 1991. An editor at Kodansha for over twenty-five years, she writes and photographs the “Backstreet Stories” monthly column for The Japan Times and is also a regular essayist for Shukan ST. After publishing five language books—one a bona-fide bestseller—Kit has decided her next project will be a collection of poetry.

About Kyoko Tsuchiya: A native of Nagoya, Kyoko graduated from Tokyo University and has worked as a translator for the past twenty years. Her award-winning translations, such as 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth (The Earthworks Group) and Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman) both sold close to a million copies each, and the two volumes of Jung Chang’s Wild Swans sold more than two million copies combined. Her range of work also includes classics such as Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden and The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.