Breaking Murphy's Law » Problems with Equipment

Overheard on Twitter: Critical event planners

Lee Potts — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:26:59 +0000

Have had technical/av problems today - not good for an audience of critical event planners #tse2012
— KathyPhelps (@KathyPhelps) January 24, 2012

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Tags: #tse2012, event planners

"Overheard on Twitter: Critical event planners" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on January 24, 2012. Copyright 2012 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

PowerPoint Ninja: “Emergency Preparedness for PowerPoint”

Lee Potts — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:20:39 +0000

Brent Dykes, The PowerPoint Ninja, strikes at the dark heart of a potential presentation disaster with this story of uncooperative hardware and a decidedly nonsupportive support person:

What I didn’t anticipate was that the presentation remote would only work with the desktop computer in the auditorium.

No problem. I had all of the presentations also loaded on to a USB flash drive so I could transfer the files on to the desktop. However, in its infinite wisdom, the university’s IT group blocked any files from being installed on the desktop including a font file that one of the teams needed. After explaining the situation to an IT “support” person, he indicated nothing could be done before our event started. Aaagggh. Luckily, someone had brought their own presentation remote so we could just run the presentations from my laptop.

Often it’s easier said than done “to be prepared”, but we often focus so much on the actual presentation itself and forget the other small technical details that can completely ruin our beautiful slides and well-rehearsed thoughts. In reflecting on this recent situation, I had several takeaways for presenters who want to be more prepared for PowerPoint emergencies…

Check out the full post for Brent’s outstanding suggestions for being prepared when things like this happen.

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"PowerPoint Ninja: “Emergency Preparedness for PowerPoint”" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on December 29, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

A classic post from James Feudo’s Overnight Sensation

Lee Potts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:38:57 +0000

Ten Things That Will Guarantee Your Speech Will Bomb. My favorite bit:

7: Don’t check your equipment:

If you’re using PowerPoint, make sure you test the computer, projector and cables you’ll be using – you don’t want any last minute technical troubles. If you need internet access, bring along an aircard just in case the network is down in the building you’re in.

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"A classic post from James Feudo’s Overnight Sensation" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 27, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Alice’s Restaurant: Presentation technology failure circa 1965

Lee Potts — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:59:48 +0000

As seems to be the case nationwide, the local classic rock radio station has a long tradition of filling up its Thanksgiving playlist with the Arlo Guthrie’s brilliant, comic, 18 1/2 minute ode to hippie sensibilities, “Alice’s Restaurant“. Although I’ve listened many times over the years, it wasn’t until recently that I realized the song’s lyrics/monologue convey an important lesson about making sure your technology will work as expected before your presentation is due to begin.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about.

If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and listen to the entire song. The text alone, without the music and without Arlo’s dry, satiric delivery doesn’t do it justice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Categories: Pre-presentation, Problems with Equipment, Problems with People
Tags: alice's restaurant, Arlo Guthrie, technology failure, thanksgiving

"Alice’s Restaurant: Presentation technology failure circa 1965" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 24, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Always, always show up early…

Lee Potts — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:59:09 +0000

Principle #6 states “If you’re not early, you’re late. A simple problem that would ordinarily not require anything more than time to fix can become a fatal error when the time isn’t available”.

John Richardson posted a great story on Success Begins Today that illustrates why it’s imperative that you arrive at the venue early enough to test every file and every piece of critical equipment.

I put on my suit jacket, grabbed my MacBook Pro, walked up to the smart podium, connected up the projector cable and waited for my first slide to come up on the screen.

It didn’t connect

I fumbled with the cables, tried different keystrokes, and it still didn’t connect.

I started to sweat, thinking about weeks of work going up in smoke. The audience was getting restless. Here I am, a technology guy, having problems with my Mac and a projector. Pictures of Steve Jobs popped into my mind. Apple products just work… except when you are in front of a restless audience.

Finally, I was just about to give up, when my screen flashed. My first slide popped on the screen, the lights dimmed and I was ready to go. I walked out in front of the podium, addressed the audience, and clicked the button on my Apple remote to advance to the next slide.

Nothing happened

….

What had been a smooth story in my mind at home was now a real problem. I glanced over at the podium, hoping to see my presenters view on my laptop which would quickly show me the next slide. Unfortunately, the podium had a large back edge which blocked my view. I was now on my own. 30 slides to go.

….

Now the remote didn’t work again. I became a contortionist and held the remote behind my back and tried to aim it at the podium without looking. Talk about out of kilter, I had to be a spectacle to my audience.

….

I could not believe all of the problems that I encountered. We were in a brand new classroom, at a state of the art junior college, with some of the latest projection technology. Yet everything went wrong.

The interesting thing was, the next five presenters all had problems too.

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Categories: Pre-presentation, Problems with Equipment, Problems with Software, Problems with Sound, Problems with Staging
Tags: early slides, MacBook Pro, projector, Time

"Always, always show up early…" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 23, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.