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.
|
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
~Douglas Adams
 ©Jonathan Potts Meet Prepared — Contingency 101: Retail Event’s Not So Grand Opening
Everything went well, he told me, except that they forgot to plan for a sudden rainstorm. Sure enough, it rained. When I asked what they did, he replied: “Panic ensued.†Although we as professionals will typically work out an inside venue back-up location should an outside event need to be moved, it’s imperative that we look at the myriad things that will be impacted by weather, even with an indoor function, such as the valet issue and power outage cited above, or access roads flooding.
LinkedIn Answers — What is the worst thing that has happened to you when presenting to a board of Directors?
I sneezed and the button of my skirt flew off and landed somewhere where it clinked pretty loudly. I paused, red-faced, then said: “In just another minute my skirt falls off – but it’s not a distraction, I actually have good news to report.” Got the laugh, moved on. (Nicole Filiatrault)
Controlbooth.com — Something To Share
If anybody is ever unsure about the health or capacity of a plug/connector, double check!!!
Speak Schmeak — Practice like you mean it
Practice using your props and flip charts. Practice using your remote device if using slides. Practice using your timer. If you’ll be recording yourself, practice with the microphone and recorder so they won’t distract you on the day. Pay attention to the details. Details count.
 As I was listening to Nina Totenberg’s story about the Sotomayor nomination this morning on NPR News, an incidental detail mentioned at the very end caught my attention:
All went incredibly smoothly except for one thing: White House aides scrambled the pages of Sotomayor’s remarks in the book they placed on the lectern for her at the announcement ceremony.
Fortunately, she had memorized her speech.
Many public speaking gurus will tell you that memorizing your speech is a bad idea. In this case it helped speaker recover from a situation that would have gone badly for anyone who had not prepared so thoroughly. It’s also interesting to note that serious presentation problems can even strike at the White House where, from what I understand, the ability to achieve perfection in execution is a fundemental job requirement. Not exactly what I would expect from the West Wing.
So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager…Â — Air Walls and The Cranky Customer
 The other day we had two different groups on either side of the ballroom airwall – one was a small group of around 35 people with a presentation and the other side was a group of 110 pharmaceutical sales reps. You can already see the problem. The sales reps had music playing between the breaks, cheering and clapping, all the usual sales mind games. The smaller group on the other side were very quiet and reserved. But they were pissed.
Distinction Services — Worst Presentation Disaster!
Sure enough with 30 peeople standing there, and during a demo of some embedded video in PowerPoint, the laptop froze.
More than PowerPoint — Presentation Diet Plan – Or Superstition?
You see, I can’t just eat ANYTHING on the day of a major presentation. I need to keep my energy up, so protein and carbs need to be on the menu. And I cannot afford a fit of, em, gastronomic distress during a presentation, so greasy, fatty, spicy, and carbonated items are definitely OFF the menu. And as much as I love a glass of wine with a big carby meal, that combo can leave me prone to sleepiness or drunken rambling — both highly undesirable to audience members.
Nick Morgan — Questions for speakers to ask meeting planners
Following is a list of questions that speakers should ask meeting planners in getting ready to speak at an event. You won’t need to ask all of them all the time; the list is meant to give you a broad set of ideas.
From a post by Richard Fernandez that has absolutely nothing to do with presentations but everything to do with the way things often go wrong:
Once the overall design margin of a system has been eroded, failure when it comes manifests itself in a rapid cascade of events. The hidden stresses suddenly pile on each other and the structure, riddled with hundreds of weaknesses each minor in itself, collapses under their simultaneous impact.
“Planning is a methodical way to think through the entire life cycle of a potential crisis. Good planning repays the investment of time and effort in development and rehearsal by shortening the time required to gain control over an incident and by providing favorable conditions for rapid and effective exchange of information about a situation, its analysis, and alternative responses.â€
~National Preparedness Guidelines, September 2007
I hardly ever get a chance to quote Hitchhiker’s Guide, so whenever and opportunity presents itself, I take it (no matter how tangential it may seem):
 The Book: It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell:
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What’s happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my… well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a… tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what’s this roaring sound, whooshing past what I’m suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I’m dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There’s an awful lot of that now isn’t it? And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
[dies]
The Book: Curiously the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias, as it fell, was, ‘Oh no, not again.’ Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly *why* the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
“Oh no, not again.”
It’s bad enough crash and burn once, it’s even worse if you let the same exact thing happen all over again. Let’s face it, the problems you’ve already had should be the easiest to avoid. You know, “fool me once…” and all that.
You never, ever want the presenter to be standing at the lectern thinking, “Oh no, not again.”
One of the best ways I’ve found to avoid this situation is to be rigorous about holding a postmortem after each and every presentation (if you prefer a less pejorative term, call it a “debrief”). Autopsy the experience. Carefully pull it apart. Cut deep and really find out what went wrong.
Some random thoughts and suggestions:
- You should do the postmortem as soon as you’re back in the office but better late than never.
- Formalize the process. Everybody on your team should come to expect the postmortem meeting to be on their calendar the day every one is back. Better yet, schedule it before the trip. Always allow time for open discussion, but also be sure to address a standard set questions every time.
- Take some time to go through your calendar, files and emails to jog your memory. I find that just reviewing the email generated by a big project is almost always good for at least three or four things to discuss at the debrief.
- Depending on the team you are working with and the environment in which you’re working, it might not be a bad idea to have two debrief meetings — one that includes the big cheeses and one that doesn’t. Believe it or not, the presence of a bunch of bosses, though usually required, can sometimes have a chilling effect on the free and open exchange of information.
- Always have a mechanism that makes it easy to share additional items after the meeting has ended. Sometimes folks prefer to comment anonymously, and sometimes the best stuff doesn’t come to mind until you’re in the car on the way home.
- Most importantly: make sure someone is taking good notes and that these notes are tidied up and distributed to everyone involved. Take a few minutes to review the notes from the last few debriefs as part of your preparations for a new presentation project.
Meet n’ Chuckle — How’s that for an ending
Then the voice continued to get louder and it became quite clear that the speaker from the session next door was bleeding over into our sound system. So we started to listen to his presentation amidst the bewildered stares and chuckles around the room.
The Webinar Blog — Still More Questions About Webinar Presentation
Jesse: What is the most embarrassing experience you have encountered?
Answer: I don’t think I want to answer this! I refuse to state whether these suggestions come from personal experience or clients, but here are some suggestions:
- On your pre-show checklist, include the item “Use the restroom.†‘Nuff said.
- Write down the names of your co-presenters and moderator. Even if they are your closest friends and coworkers. Some day your brain will go on vacation right as you need to introduce them.
- If sharing your computer desktop, remove personal photos as background wallpaper, hide icons mentioning games and competing products, and turn off instant messenger and email. Do you really want your lover’s sexy message to you transmitted for the world to see?
- If you work from a home office, keep the pets and children out of the room. The sound of a coughed up hairball is not attractive for your remote audience.
LinkedIn Question — If you give webinars, or any sort of distance learning would you share the things that have gone wrong or could go wrong?
Great Public Speaking — Add Weight
If you are ever forced (I say “forced” because you should try to avoid outdoor presentations at all costs) to do an outdoor presentation, then make sure you have several different kinds of weights handy to help control your presentation.
 “When things are going good, people want to give you flowers. When things are going bad, heads up. The vase is coming.â€
~Philadelphia goalie Martin Biron after the Flyers took a 3-1 lead in their 2008 semifinal series after a 4-2 win over Montreal
The Risk Family — Presentation Disaster
However, almost immediately after I arrived for the meeting, my presentation began to fall apart and in the end, my presentation turned out to be a disaster. This is the story of how it all came down – literally.
Startable — Quick VC pitch tip #6
Recently an entrepreneur was meeting with me, and despite the best efforts of this CEO, our tech guy and several administrative assistants, we couldn’t get the laptop to be recognized by the projector.
Execupundit.com — Downshifting a Presentation
At the last minute, due to an administrative snafu beyond the speaker’s control, the audience is reduced by three-fourths.
Web Strategy by Jeremiah — My Embarrassing Scoble Powerpoint Incident in front of Hundreds of People
This is a true story. Shel Holtz, Jen McClure, Katie Paine, Joseph Thornley, Robert Scoble and others were witness. Not sure why I’m telling the world this, I guess it’s in the spirit of transparency and kind of a way to deal with the embarrassment. In my social media career, this is THE most embarrassing public moment I’ve had to date.
Nick Morgan’s Blog — Bill Gates does something he shouldn’t
The disaster happened about half-way through the speech, in the section on malaria. Bill suddenly moved toward a little table placed in the middle of the stage, and released a (small) swarm of mosquitoes into the crowd, as he put it, of millionaires.
|