How about two quick questions, just for the fun of it… (okay the first one’s a little boring) Would you rather give a presentation with your slides but not your speaker notes or have your notes but not your slides? (the second has a little more “zing“) You’re at the crossroads, it’s midnight, the contract [...]

Cringing and laughter. Good presentation disaster stories inspire one or the other. Really good presentation disaster stories inspire at least a little of both. This story, from Ian Whitworth’s blog, Can You Hear Me Up the Back?, ping-pongs back and forth from one to the other so often I lost track and ended up laughing [...]

The Moore Speakers blog has been on a roll lately, posting three great stories that would cause anyone involved in the presentations biz  to wince in sympathy. I leaned to the side and caught the falling pants with my elbow. And that is the way I remained during the rest of the talk: one hand [...]

MadTV — Drunk Powerpoint Presentation (Somewhat NSFW) Drunk Powerpoint Presentation Uploaded by Berserk_Gattsu – Wired Presentations — Sometimes a Mistake Pays Off All is well until a guy in the first row said, “my notes didn’t match what you were discussing.” Someone from the back chimed it, “Mine don’t match either.” Yep, Jeff had been [...]

Theater Loop — ‘Mary Poppins’ breaks down in Chicago; Nanny stuck in no-fly zone A computer central to the new touring production of Disney’s “Mary Poppins” malfunctioned about 15 minutes into Saturday night’s Chicago performance at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, causing the entire show to be shut down and the frustrated audience sent home. [A [...]

Veteran AV pro Rick Pillars, (It’s a Rap Productions) sent in a great story: Once upon a time I supplied audio visual labor to clients both locally and from all over the nation. We had some interesting times. This one time we were setting up a pretty large show. The union labor that was supposed [...]

Another one of those situations where a good rehearsal would have helped… Thanks to Richard Garber of Joyful Public Speaking for the heads up.

Examples of what you might call “unintentional foreshadowing”: We don’t need to tape down that extension cord, no one’s going to be going over there. It’s a brand new projector, why should we spend that much money on a backup bulb. They had a pipe burst the last time we did a meeting there. There’s [...]

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. [...]

Yeah, I know it’s kind of crass to whine and complain during the season of joy, but here are a few things I know a lot of meeting professionals wished Santa had managed to slip into his sack before flying south: A magic coupon for free, fast, robust, ubiquitous Wi-Fi redeemable at any meeting venue. [...]