Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." This is especially true and especially painful when there is an audience involved.

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This blog was active from April, 2008 to July 2012.
It is no longer being updated. It will continue to be maintained for reference purposes.

Bookmarked: Watch the Apple Keynote’s Network Meltdown — Gizmodo

Watch the Apple Keynote’s Network Meltdown — Gizmodo – “WWDC keynotes are usually carefully orchestrated affairs. But you might have just read in our live blog how Steve Jobs had to bail on a demo because of network trouble. Awkward. Apple attempted to do their demo over Wi-Fi, but as you can see couldn’t manage to get things up and running due to overload. So Jobs had to ask everyone in the audience, repeatedly, to shut off their Wi-Fi so the show could go on. A bizarre hiccup for a company in its prime, showing off its latest wares.”

Bookmarked: Watch the Apple Keynote’s Network Meltdown — Gizmodo

Watch the Apple Keynote’s Network Meltdown — Gizmodo – "WWDC keynotes are usually carefully orchestrated affairs. But you might have just read in our live blog how Steve Jobs had to bail on a demo because of network trouble. Awkward. Apple attempted to do their demo over Wi-Fi, but as you can see couldn't manage to get things up and running due to overload. So Jobs had to ask everyone in the audience, repeatedly, to shut off their Wi-Fi so the show could go on. A bizarre hiccup for a company in its prime, showing off its latest wares."

Bookmarked: Presentation Blunders | 3xG

Presentation Blunders | 3xG – "Sometimes when your standing in front of thousands of people you really don’t want anything to go wrong, too bad. Murphy’s law seems to apply less to engineering these days and more to IT. So here’s our top 5 list of when presentations go wrong." [Video content]

Bookmarked: Packing a Parachute — ISM’s Travel + Marketing Blog

Packing a Parachute — ISM’s Travel + Marketing Blog – "This post is about the fundamentals for anyone going to give a presentation. I lovingly refer to this as The Holy Sh*t Kit but it can also lovingly be referred to as the Presentation Disaster Kit. It’s everything you need if you show up to presentation and everything goes wrong."<br />
Always make the most junior team member carry this unless that person is me. (Sadly I’m old enough now that that rarely happens!)

Bookmarked: Booher Banter: Presentation Disasters: Recovery Tips

Booher Banter: Presentation Disasters: Recovery Tips – "So far so good. Then just as I clicked on the one and only slide that they really needed to see (versus the other humorous ones), the computer froze. The remote would not move it backward or forward. I stroll to the keyboard itself and click it. No luck. Fortunately, the A/V crew appeared from behind the stage immediately to handle the situation."

Bookmarked: Volvo auto brake fails during demo

Volvo auto brake fails during demo – "Volvo's major new safety feature failed in embarrassing fashion during a press presentation. Called 'Collision Warning with Auto Brake', the technology is supposed to automatically apply the brakes if cameras sense an imminent crash. Unfortunately, the technology broke down in front of a group of journalists at a presentation in Sweden. And sadly for Volvo, some of them were armed with camera phones."

Bookmarked: The fire alarm rings during your presentation — Jason Bay Jersey

The fire alarm rings during your presentation — Jason Bay Jersey – "About eight minutes into my breakfast presentation to the local chamber of commerce at a fancy restaurant the fire alarm rang. The alarm was annoyingly loud so naturally I stopped speaking and forced a smile."

Bookmarked: #290: Presentation Disasters — Daily Tips for Consultants

#290: Presentation Disasters — Daily Tips for Consultants – "I recently attended a seminar held by a fellow consultant. During the presentation, his computer ran out of batteries and he had forgotten his power supply. The material he was presenting to the group abruptly stopped and he was forced to continue the seminar without the benefit of his slides. Unfortunately, the rest of the seminar was not well received, as the presenter never truly recovered from losing his material. What a nightmare!"

Bookmarked: 6 Mistakes you should never make as a Presenter — Free as in Freedom

6 Mistakes you should never make as a Presenter — Free as in Freedom – "I believe live demos are a recipe for presentation disaster. Forcing yourself to do a live demo is like saying, "Look at how much of a man I am! I'm willing to put my presentation to risk with my bravery!". One of the things you want to do in a presentation, is be in absolute control. I like to minimize the number of things that are out of my control in a presentation situation. Patchy network connections, a bad day with the demo software, and 'errs and ummhs' at the time of presenting are all things beyond my control."

Bookmarked: Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta v2 big success (Julie Yack’s Blog)

Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta v2 big success (Julie Yack’s Blog) – "When his projector failed, presenter James Johnson didn’t let that stop him. He flattened out his laptop and used a document camera to display his screen and presentation for his group."