Hard to believe Spring training is again underway. When it comes to baseball, I’m a complete homer — I always have been and always will be a Phillies fan. The only thing is, I really like  hockey a lot more than I like baseball. So given that the hockey season was well under way by [...]

The Oops Factor (Two Well Read) – “It is a fact if you perform live, sooner or later you will meet with a genuine, bona fide onstage disaster. Generally, these seem to fall into two categories. The first is the self-made conflagration where lyrics evaporate into thin air, the high note that was there at [...]

They call the meeting venue’s electrician “Sparky”. Unfortunately it’s not so much a affectionate, if clichéd, nickname. It’s more a description of his work.
Inspired by a Nicholas Bate post from earlier in the week. (BTW, check out Nicholas’ terrific ongoing series, How To Be Brilliant: 1-50, currently on number 39.)

How To Be Brilliant: 1-50: 38

Jackman – Can You Hear Us Now? (TMZ.com) – “Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig were trying to perform their play “A Steady Rain” Wednesday night in NYC — but some nitwit forgot to turn off his mobile phone. Jackman set the dude straight — staying in character all the while. Minutes later, the ring tone [...]

Conference nightmares. The many faces of scientific presentations (LabLit.com) – “Prof “Defeated by technology” provides good entertainment. … I remember well giving a talk at the Hammersmith Hospital in the early days of PowerPoint when, after loading the talk onto their computer, a message came up on the screen saying your talk is [...]

How to deal with rough crowds: A stand-up comic’s advice for Sarah Lacy – “Lacy got to perform in front of a sober audience. She faced a bunch of nerds yelling at her to ask tougher questions. That sounds like a bubble bath compared to what road comics have to deal with. While I had [...]

When presentations go wrong and how to recover afterwards (OfficeRocker!) – “If any of you were at the Nottingham Technet event last week, you were a witness to probably the worst crash and burn I have ever suffered during a live presentation. I had put quite a lot of work into the presentation, believe [...]

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 at [...]

A tad more embarrassing than your run-of-the-mill error and spell check never would have picked it up (you’ll need to click on the thumbnail to see the larger original on Twitpic — click on “View full size” once you get there).

You may have noticed that, thanks to the recent outbursts of nastiness inflicted by Kanye West, Joe Wilson, and Serena Williams, more than a little ink has been spilled lamenting the current state of public discourse. Here are some random examples grabbed from my feed reader:
Create Your Communications Experience: Handling Hecklers – Obama does [...]