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Playing keep away…

Lee Potts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:31:13 +0000

Keep the cup of coffee away from the equipment.

Keep the welcome reception away from the speaker’s slide review session.

Keep the speaker’s flight time away from the meeting’s start time.

Keep the USB drive with your presentation on it away from the washing machine.

Keep the social media apps with potentially indiscreet popups away from your show laptop.

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"Playing keep away…" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 28, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Might Have Missed List (02/27/11)

Lee Potts — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 02:43:13 +0000

Via boingboing — The importance of well-secured stage props: video

Princeton Public Speaking — 5 Teleprompter Tips

The teleprompter has gotten quite a bit of recent attention. After witnessing many faux pas over the past few days, here are five quick tips to make the teleprompter experience a bit more rewarding:

1) Always bring a physical copy of the text with you. There is nothing worse than discovering that the text you had thought was loaded into the teleprompter was not loaded, or was loaded incorrectly. In addition, always remember that as with any electronic device, a teleprompter, or teleprompter software, can fail to work properly.

So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager… — The Room Was Setup Perfectly…

When I came in Tuesday the dumb-ass group contact tells me that the room is setup wrong. WTF! I’ve got a diagram. I take my copies of the BEO’s outta my pocket and show her the diagram that was sent to us.

“Sorry, that looks like the diagram from the meeting we had at the Marriott downtown last month. My secretary made these arrangements, not me”, she said. “I need this room setup for crescent rounds”, was next.

Meet Prepared — Time to Step Up: Professional Associations and their Risk Management Failures

I was attending a national conference of one of our professional associations within the past two years and was embarrassed when walking into a break out session to find a significant problem. The room’s secondary exit was blocked not only by a large screen but the cart holding the sound equipment also was blocking the doorway. I immediately pointed this out to one of the senior meeting planners and was informed that this set up was done by the venue. I was stunned by a meeting planner so willing to throw the venue under the bus for something that is clearly the responsibility of any meeting planner. So what’s the solution? It seems rather obvious but let me again reiterate that common sense is not common. Any meeting planner should always look at every room set up for issues like egress from a room in case of a fire or other problems where the primary entrance is blocked. Find the time to walk the meeting space after the venue sets up to ensure that not only is it set properly but that things like emergency exits are clear of obstacles.

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Tags: Banquet Manager, common sense, conference, equipment, props, risk management, stage props, teleprompter, teleprompter software, venue, video

"Might Have Missed List (02/27/11)" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on February 27, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Might Have Missed List (02/13/11)

Lee Potts — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:56:43 +0000

Joyful Public Speaking — Mistake-proofing your presentation outfit

If you do a lot of traveling to give presentations, then you might consider setting up a “go bag” to visually organize what you take along. In my February 1st post I discussed the use of checklists. They are one aspect of a more general topic in quality called mistake-proofing, which is the use of process or design features to prevent errors.

Life in the Corporate Theater — The Audio guy’s personal Tech Kit

For those of you that aren’t in the business, What I am referring to as a “Tech Kit” is all of the gadgets that you would bring to a show to help you do your job, basically the way you want to do it.

View From the Ledge — Preparedness…

Strangers might wonder why
That big snow-shovel’s leaning
Against the house in July.
Has it some cryptic meaning?

It means at least to say
That, here, we needn’t be neat
About putting things away,
As on some suburban street.

What’s more, by leaning there
The shovel seems to express,
With its rough and ready air,
A boast of ruggedness.

If a stranger said in sport
“I see you’re prepared for snow,”
Our shovel might retort,
“Out here, you never know.”

- Out Here, by Richard Wilbur from Anterooms

MinnPost – Technological glitches disrupt GOP pitch for high-tech voting system

There was, it should be noted, a standing-room-only crowd of people eager to testify on either side of the election bills.

Kiffmeyer nodded to the man seated next to her to start the video.

He hit a button.

Nothing happened.

He hit more buttons, but still no video showed up on the big screens in the hearing room.

The man was joined by another man. There was fiddling with the computer.

Ah, success.

There was audio!

“A 21st Century voting system …,” the recorded voice began.

But there was a problem. No video.

“Maybe we should save the video until Tuesday,” said the committee chairwoman, Rep. Joyce Peppin.

“Thank you, madam chair,” said Kiffmeyer.

The two men trying to get the video operational kept trying. The audio came on again.

“A 21st Century voting system …”

No video.

Kiffmeyer tried not to look flustered.

“Umm, it’s this technology in the House …,” Kiffmeyer said.

The chairwoman tried to speak. Her microphone didn’t work.

…

Of course, many observers, including the DFL minority members of the committee, found the day’s technological failure both amusing and ironic.

The Official join.me Blog — Whose Turn Is it? And Who’s Talking?

Even when conference calls aren’t a total waste of time, there’s still two problems that always come up. I have some ideas for how to solve them, but I’d like your suggestions for how to solve them without resorting to violence.

(Trust me, I’ve got that option covered.)

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"Might Have Missed List (02/13/11)" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on February 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Thought for the day: Practice until…

Lee Potts — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:51:46 +0000

From Tony Ramos’ Facebook stream:

Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.

Nicely compliments the two Principles of Presentation Disaster Avoidance devoted to practice:

Number 3: If you practice like it’s the real thing, the real thing will seem like a practice.

Number 9: Everyone knows that it’s essential to rehearse, but not everyone knows how to rehearse what’s essential.

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Tags: 3, 9, Practice, Rehearsal, tony ramos

"Thought for the day: Practice until…" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 11, 2010. Copyright 2010 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Clutch Hitting

Lee Potts — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:24:13 +0000

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 time the world series final ground to a halt, it was relatively easy to come to terms with the fact that the Phils couldn’t quite pull off the repeat. But out of the the deluge of the press coverage documenting their ultimately unsuccessful campaign came this quotes from the Phillies’ cunning old manager Charlie Manuel:

“He likes the moment,” Manuel said. “He wants to be there, and he can control his adrenaline and he can handle the moment.”

Manuel is describing Jimmy Rollins after his clutch hit won them game four of the NLCS in the bottom of the ninth.

Can you think of a better description of the kind of person you want to be working a meeting with you? You know the moments we’re talking about here. Lamps burn out, speakers freaking out, cable getting kick loose, file corrupt, etc.

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