Painting with Numbers - Hardcover

by Randall Bolten (Author), Tom Campbell (Foreword by)

Learn how to communicate better with numbers

Whether you are distributing a report or giving a presentation, you have a lot of numbers to present and only a few minutes to get your point across. Your audience is busy and has a short attention span. Don't let an amateur presentation bog you down, confuse your audience, and damage your credibility. Instead, learn how to present numerical information effectively--in the same way you learned how to speak or write. With Painting with Numbers, you'll discover how to present numbers clearly and effectively so your ideas and your presentation shine.

• Use the Arabic numeral system to your advantage master the use of layout and visual effects to communicate powerfully
• Understand how audiences process your information and how that affects your "personal brand image"
• Learn how to be perceived as a professional who truly understands the business concepts and issues underlying your numbers
• Use software tools, including Excel, PowerPoint, and graphs, efficiently and to drive home your point

Author Randall Bolten shares his decades of experience as a senior finance executive distilling complicated information into clear presentations, to help you make your numerical information more comprehensible, meaningful, and accessible. Painting with Numbers is brimming with hands-on advice, techniques, tools, rules, and guidelines for producing clear, attractive, and effective quantation (the word the author has coined for the skill of presenting numbers).

Front Jacket

You have a lot of numbers to report or present, and your readers or listeners will give you only a few minutes to get your point across. Presenting numerical information coherently is a communication skill, and like any other communication skill, how well you do this has a dramatic effect on your audience's understanding of your narrative. Moreover, they will not distinguish between you and the information you are providing when forming conclusions about your professional and personal credibility. With Painting with Numbers, you'll discover how to present numbers clearly and effectively so your ideas and your presentation resonate with your audience. This is a skill that can be learned.

During his nearly twenty years as a CFO in Silicon Valley, author Randall Bolten learned that small changes in the way numbers were presented made a huge difference in how well they were understood. In Painting with Numbers, you'll learn the art of quantation: the act of presenting numbers articulately for the purpose of informing an audience. Misunderstood reports can lead to mass confusion, and even costly errors. Bolten shows you how to package your material into the "right" presentation to deliver an outstanding performance, every time.

Featuring a wide range of quantation examples, Painting with Numbers covers what you need to know to present numbers so that people can understand them quickly and get the maximum meaning from them. This accessible reference will teach you to:

• Use the Arabic numeral system to your advantage
• Master the layout to convey your information most effectively
• Use visual effects to enhance your reports
• Use software tools, including Excel and PowerPoint, efficiently to drive home your point
• Make graphs comprehensible and meaningful to your audience
• Interact with your audience as a peer
• Maximize the impact of the numbers in your oral presentations
• Add even more meaning to your quantation by combining ratios and other metrics with the basic report information
• Get the words right, and not just the numbers
• Create useful and meaningful management reports
• See how quantation can clarify public policy issues
• Appreciate the role quantation plays in your daily life

Painting with Numbers will show you how to communicate financials and tell your story in a way that is clear, comprehensible, concise, elegant, and, most of all, effective.

Back Jacket

PAINTING WITH NUMBERS

Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You

You have a lot of numbers to report or present, and your readers or listeners will give you only a few minutes to get your point across. Presenting numerical information coherently is a communication skill, and like any other communication skill, how well you do this has a dramatic effect on your audience's understanding of your narrative. Moreover, they will not distinguish between you and the information you are providing when forming conclusions about your professional and personal credibility. With Painting with Numbers, you'll discover how to present numbers clearly and effectively so your ideas and your presentation resonate with your audience. This is a skill that can be learned.

During his nearly twenty years as a CFO in Silicon Valley, author Randall Bolten learned that small changes in the way numbers were presented made a huge difference in how well they were understood. In Painting with Numbers, you'll learn the art of quantation: the act of presenting numbers articulately for the purpose of informing an audience. Misunderstood reports can lead to mass confusion, and even costly errors. Bolten shows you how to package your material into the "right" presentation to deliver an outstanding performance, every time.

Featuring a wide range of quantation examples, Painting with Numbers covers what you need to know to present numbers so that people can understand them quickly and get the maximum meaning from them. This accessible reference will teach you to:

• Use the Arabic numeral system to your advantage
• Master the layout to convey your information most effectively
• Use visual effects to enhance your reports
• Use software tools, including Excel and PowerPoint, efficiently to drive home your point
• Make graphs comprehensible and meaningful to your audience
• Interact with your audience as a peer
• Maximize the impact of the numbers in your oral presentations
• Add even more meaning to your quantation by combining ratios and other metrics with the basic report information
• Get the words right, and not just the numbers
• Create useful and meaningful management reports
• See how quantation can clarify public policy issues
• Appreciate the role quantation plays in your daily life

Painting with Numbers will show you how to communicate financials and tell your story in a way that is clear, comprehensible, concise, elegant, and, most of all, effective.

Author Biography

RANDALL BOLTEN operates a consulting practice focused on financial management and information presentation. He is a seasoned and accomplished finance executive, with thirty years of experience in high-growth and high-potential Silicon Valley companies. His professional passion is presenting information that can enable managers, investors, and the general public to make real sense of complicated situations. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University.