Last week I was in sunny Silicon Valley, USA for three days of seminars in the first ever Presentation//Reboot. The seminars were sold out and were limited to an intimate size of about 32 per day. Although I had my usual combination of jet lag and sleep deprivation from the long trip from Japan, the wonderful participants we had each day really gave me all the energy I needed. Every new day brought a fantastic new group of eager adult learners who were committed to improving themselves and those around them. We had participants from all over the US and several from overseas. I was blown away by the backgrounds and the diversity of the people attending Reboot. It was an honor to work with such a great group of people each day. And of course working with Nancy and the Duarte staff is always amazing. Nancy and I have different styles, yet we work perfectly together. I guess we have good "wa" (harmony). (See the post that Nancy wrote about Reboot on the Slide:ology website.)

Nancy Duarte receives Women of Influence Award
On Wednesday after Reboot, Nancy & Mark Duarte headed up to San Francisco to the fabulous Fairmont Hotel for the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s 2009 Women of Influence Awards. The event honored 100 of Silicon Valley's most impressive women. It's no surprise to us, of course, we already knew that Nancy is one of the most impressive women you'll ever meet. Nancy and her team have truly created something special in Duarte Design. They do serious and important work, but they have fun too and have never forgotten the importance of play. Nancy certainly has made an amazing contribution over the years through her work and time (and her book). She deserves any recognition she gets (and she is getting more all the time). Nancy's a fantastic leader.

PZ book honored for design
Speaking of awards, on Thursday Karyn Johnson form Peach Pit Press (my publisher) drove across the bay from Berkeley to give me an award that the Presentation Zen book won recently. The PZ book was awarded the Certificate of Excellence for design at the 38th Annual Bookbuilders West Awards held in Oakland in January. Here you can see some of the people who contributed to the visual aspect of the book (ironically the cover image is distorted on the webpage). It was the first book I ever designed (used InDesign and Photoshop & Illustrator mostly) and I could not have done it without the great production staff at Peach Pit Press and the wonderful contributions of friends. I'll be designing my next book with Peach Pit too which will be out before Christmas this year.

Do you need training? (Who doesn't?)
If you would like to attend a workshop at Duarte Design, remember that they have killer Slide:ology workshops throughout the year featuring Nancy and her fantastic staff (these are the guys that do Al Gore's visuals and a lot of the presentations at TED, etc.). Checkout their training schedule.

Links
• Some pics I snapped on my iPhone at Reboot.
• Some pics Nancy snapped here (and here and here).
• #preboot (some, including me, were twittering from Reboot).