“Rick Pillars, an 18-year AV pro and owner of It’s a Rap Productions sent me the following vignette in response to an earlier BML post: This is actually a pretty typical scenario. We just spent two or more days setting up for the General Session. On Day 3 we come in and from 7am-8am we [...]

The Presentations Council over at InfoComm International is surveying all of us presentation professionals: ARE YOU A PRESENTATION PROFESSIONAL? Compare yourself with your peers in InfoComm International’s annual Presentation Professional survey. This year it’s shorter, easier and faster to complete. Whether you’re one of many in a corporate setting, or a one-person shop wearing all [...]

It’s not like I was out there searching or anything but I found a quote that could be the official motto for Breaking Murphy’s Law: Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. ~Eleanor Roosevelt Pretty good, isn’t it. I came across it on Bob Sutton’s blog [...]

My Toastmasters Blog — Public Speaking Secrets – Your Audience (and Google) Know More than You Last night I attended an open speaking event, that wasn’t Toastmasters, where speakers were tasked to give an interesting 5 minute presentation. One of the presentations was a fabulous demonstration of drawing the audience in with an interesting story, [...]

Speaking about Presenting — PowerPoint Design in 2009 There’s been a fantastic response to my invitation to write about PowerPoint Design in 2009. 40 contributions. That’s a wealth of material to guide you in making presentations in 2009. They include strong opinions, the odd rant, and many perceptive “hit the nail” comments. I’ve created three [...]

This is the one hundred and first post on BML. Noticing this milestone gave me an opportunity to take a look back and review what’s  happened so far. One thing I noticed is a tendency to focus on the disaster and the aftermath. Makes sense. These posts are usually entertaining  to both read and write [...]

…writing’s on the wall” (but make sure there are no bullet points and that you have a big dramatic photo you found on Flickr in the background. Why? I don’t know.). [Editor's note: Olivia Mitchell has devised an incredibly interesting and ambitious group blogging project. She asked an army of  PowerPoint designers, speaking coaches and [...]

Brad Montgomery’s Laugh-O-Nomics: Meeting Planner Sabotages Keynote Speaker I got my gear set, was all-systems-go with the AV team, and had chatted with the big boss (who by the way had hired me two times in the past.)  So far, everything is easy and fun. But here is where it gets hinky.  I was about [...]

Why is so tempting to focus almost all your precious rehearsal time and energy on what the presenter is doing? Maybe it’s because what’s happening onstage is the most visible/audible element of the entire production. Maybe it’s because the person who will be behind the lecture is usually the most worried person in the room. [...]

First post of 2009. Happy New Year! Relational Presentation Blog: Fear of Public Speaking Some time ago, I confidently waltzed into a conference room, ready to give a small group presentation in front of a gaggle of professors. We sat around talking, and then I got up to speak on the benefits of interactive presentation, [...]