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.
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Brad Montgomery’s Laugh-O-Nomics: Meeting Planner Sabotages Keynote Speaker
 ©iStockphoto.com/design56 I got my gear set, was all-systems-go with the AV team, and had chatted with the big boss (who by the way had hired me two times in the past.) So far, everything is easy and fun.
But here is where it gets hinky. I was about to grab a box lunch… I was starving and was needed calories before I spoke for an hour and a half … when I casually asked the meeting planner if I could have a sandwich. I asked her knowing it was a formality. Of course she would feed her speaker.  I nearly didn’t ask.
I was wrong. She said, “Oh no, those are for the participants.â€Â I thought she was joking. “You’re kidding, right?â€Â   I honestly thought she was joking about not feeding me.
BBC: Cat turns up on weatherman’s set
A cat wandered onto the set of a live weather forecast by Germany’s leading meteorologist Joerg Kachelmann. Kachelmann had just started his two-minute forecast when the cat appeared – but he scooped it up and finished his forecast. (Video. Would you be able to handle a distraction like this with this much aplomb or would you be completely derailed?)
Pro Humorist: Public Speaking Advice: Reading Audiences
I noticed one of the audience members in the front row falling asleep. I’m not normally known for being the sort of soporific speaker to send someone into a slumber. My mind immediately began racing through my potential options whilst my mouth carried on on auto-pilot. Here were the choices as I saw them:
1) I could draw attention to sleeping beauty
2) I could let sleeping dogs lie.
IttyBiz: 7 Lessons From A Big Launch
This Christmas, I bought Jamie the full series of The West Wing on DVD and we’ve been watching a few episodes each night. What never ceases to amaze me is how many colossal fuck ups take place. They have an in-house staff of hundreds and TENS OF THOUSANDS off-site. Their staff are among the most highly trained people in the world, and shit still goes horribly wrong. They do their best to predict, but there’s only so much they can do.
They have thousands of people employed to predict and prevent disaster. You have you. Cut yourself some slack.
FailBlog: Pen Trick Fail (Video. You need to watch to the end.)
CNET: Steal the slide show with Victorinox Presentation Pro
At this year’s CES, Victorinox announced the newest member of its team, the Presentation Pro. This convenient business tool is small enough to slip into your pocket or onto your keychain, but don’t be fooled by its mini size–this thing has every gadget you’ll need to give a business slide show presentation.
 ©iStockphoto.com/Mantonature 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. Maybe it’s because the speaker, at least in a corporate setting, is often the biggest of the several big cheeses involved in any given event.
I came across the story below in my feed reader a last week and it’s author, Rikk Flohr (his blog, his website) was kind enough to give me permission to reprint it here on BML. It’s a great illustration of an important principle: Everyone knows that it’s essential to rehearse, but not everyone knows how to rehearse what’s essential.
In other words, a successful rehearsal has to be about more than just a speaker getting the words, voice, pacing, stage movement and gestures right. It also has to include, in a meaningful way, the easy to overlook “backstage” elements that need to be performed correctly and in unison with the presenter.
Death and Resurrection by PowerPoint
Have you ever been inside one of those English-dubbed Japanese Monster Movies? I don’t mean being chased by some rubbery monster with curiously man-like proportions. What I am talking about is the experience of, in real life, having the sounds being heard not follow the visual cues of script and mouth shapes. Today, this happened to me.
REHEARSE! REHEARSE! REHEARSE!
My recent forays at PowerPoint Live brought me in contact with many people who, primarily or secondarily, were learning the craft of professional presentation for use at their local church. There has been an explosion of multimedia materials used in conjunction with church services. Inspirational pictures are shown, announcements are broadcast and lyrics for the hymns are displayed. It also keeps the church feeling modern and in-tune to today’s youth.
I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked to find my own church constructing a trio of large screens in the main worship area. Three massive screens with powerful projectors lead us all in the celebration of the mass. Pictures are shown, announcements are made and lyrics displayed-all run from the mixer board at the back center of church. We no longer have hymnals and we no longer have photocopied sheets stuck in the pews cueing us on what to sing. Until today, it was all running so smoothly.
REHEARSE! REHEARSE! REHEARSE!
Saturday Night Live did a great skit once about St. Mickey’s Knights of Columbus where no one in the crowd new the second line to any of the less common Christmas carols. Life imitated art today. During the second song of the day, the second verse was upon us and the vocalist leading the song, sang, suddenly alone. The crowd trailed off into silence. Some mumbled heroically. Some looked around awkwardly for guidance. The lyrics being displayed on the massive screens were not the same as those being sung. Since it was a second verse, no one was really quite sure who was right: the presenter with the script or the slide that said otherwise. Eventually, the perplexed singer looked at the screen and joined the subdued crowd in the projected lyrics.
REHEARSE! REHEARSE! REHEARSE!
For the rest of the service, every song was tentative-every churchgoer unsure of his or her self. The projectionist started to become tentative too. The slides didn’t change quite as crisply as before. Some of them appeared too early as compensation for the bewilderment in the crowd. Mass ended early-perhaps by design-perhaps by confusion. I surreptitiously grabbed a few cell phone camera captures (see them here) in the uncertain moments, knowing that this was presentation precarious.
Choirs rehearse. Musicians rehearse. Speakers rehearse. Projectionists and those interacting with the presentation-particularly in a multi-presenter environment need to rehearse too. It isn’t enough to know the script (read lyrics) on the sheet on your podium (read music stand), you have to know the visuals too and be certain that they are sympathetic or at least not incompatible.
Lest you lead your flock astray, repeat the refrain (to the notes of “…in this world and the next…â€:
REHEARSE! REHEARSE! REHEARSE!
A-MEN!
Anyone who receives your presentation is your flock. Do not lead them astray!
Rikk Flohr © 2008
Rikk Flohr teaches and writes about the subtle art and inexact science of imaging-from capture, through editing and finally presentation. In addition he teaches at national conferences like PowerPoint Live and conducts photographic and image editing workshops in multiple countries. His design firm, Fleeting Glimpse Images supplies design for print and screen, presentation consulting, video and still photographic services for a wide range of clients.
First post of 2009. Happy New Year!
Relational Presentation Blog: Fear of Public Speaking
Some time ago, I confidently waltzed into a conference room, ready to give a small group presentation in front of a gaggle of professors. We sat around talking, and then I got up to speak on the benefits of interactive presentation, something I’d done countless times before. All of a sudden my voice became constricted and my head began to swim. Nervousness hit me out of nowhere like a tidal wave … and for absolutely no reason.
Great Public Speaking: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
Just when you think you’re on top of the world . . . ZAP! The computer Gods bring you down a few notches. This past Friday while setting up for ButtCamp in Orlando, FL my new laptop that had just easily checked email for me in my hotel room would not boot up. I thought, “Gee this is a pain, but no big deal. I’ll just get my trusty old backup computer which has been chugging along for a couple years. I got it out and OH NO! It wouldn’t boot up either.
Brad Montgomery’s Laugh-O-Nomics: Brad’s New Rule: I will never speak in this venue again
I’ll never again speak in a gym. Ever. I’ve spoken to tons of youth and high school groups, and love the kids. I love the teachers. And I love the energy that only youth audiences can generate. But I gotta tell you: I’ve spoken in my last gym.
I’ll call it the First Rule Of Brad: No Gyms.
Why? The sound system is always bad. Even the good ones are bad. People cannot see. Folks are sitting on those horrible bleachers so at the best they way spread out to your left to your right. And at worst, they are on BOTH bleachers with you at the end of the gym.  (Can you say, “Hey Jim Bob! I can’t see a darned thing from here!“)
New York Times: Internet Use Grows at Meetings, as Do Challenges
Erika Powell, a meeting planner for Global Knowledge, a company that provides software training to corporate clients, said she was recently forced to move an event because the hotel’s Internet connection could not keep up with her group’s demands.
“On Monday, we started getting reports that the Internet was very slow and they weren’t able to access the labs,†she said. “We communicated with the facility to find out what the problem was, but they were at a loss.†Ms. Powell said she had to pull up stakes and relocate her students to another nearby hotel in the middle of the week so their training could be completed without slowdowns.
Los Angeles Times: Making a point in Washington? You’ll need a prop
There is, of course, always a possibility that the use of props will backfire.
“Political theater still has a role in highlighting a cause or issue, but . . . it’s important not to get buried in the part,” said Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union. “Given the wealth of online video, for example, a failed publicity stunt can be seen by millions instead of just a roomful of people.”
As a reminder of that lesson, former House GOP leadership aide Kevin Madden said, he kept in his office a picture of Republicans holding toy windmills in an attempt to ridicule Democrats’ energy policies. It looked silly, Madden said, and “the message it sent was one that was not serious at all” about energy policy.
Acronym: Track Speakers & Board Members
Do you have a keynote speaker or board member flying in the day of the event? If you need to know their flight status in order to gauge whether the situation reaches ‘code red delays,’ you can easily track flights using several tools.
ready2spark: tents 101 . part one
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve come across clients who don’t consider the weather. I’ve already talked about rain, but there are many other types of inclement weather to think about.
Slides that stick: Too much – “painful graphics”
Before I argued that slightly irritating the audience’s senses could support your presentation. Two cases of overdoing it…
 Most popular guest post based on bad search engine assumptions: The world’s worst wet T-shirt contest — Laura Bergells was kind enough to share this story that is still getting getting a lot of hits (for all the wrong reasons).
As I do, a man with 2 steaming coffees in his hands walks briskly towards me. However, his head is turned over his shoulder and he’s yelling to someone far behind him.
Twelve ounces of scalding coffee hits the front of my white blouse. I howl in pain and run to the washroom as the man tries to initiate a conversation about how sorry he is.
Worst anthropomorphization: Toshiba TLP-X200U: Watch your mouth… –The TLP-X200U uses audible messages to interface with the projectionist.
Unexpected things projectors will be heard saying in the future:
- “Hey Butthead!!! Yeah, you at the lectern. Time to change my filter.â€
- “You never take me anywhere nice anymore.â€
- “Sorry, I just can’t stay focused today.â€
- “Poor Uncle Sony, they said it was death by PowerPoint.â€
- “Stop pushing my buttons!â€
Best product placement: But I can’t find a Pepsi anywhere…
It’s sort of like this: if you need to have Pepsi, and you’re headed for Atlanta, be sure to bring your own. The hard part is knowing that you’ll need to do so.
Post most likely to cause retching when read during lunch break: Don’t Kick the Bucket
They were all pros and they all knew the show had to go on. A number of buckets were placed as discreetly as possible around the ballroom for use while the stage was built and the equipment was set up. The smell was pretty bad he said. The sounds were worse.
Post that caused the most comment conversation (perhaps due to the Star Wars tie in): Jedi Knights With Frickin’ Laser Pointers — This was also BML’s first real post. It’s been all down hill since.
The little red dot slides across the audience like he’s a nervous hit man looking for his target. It’s lucky he doesn’t burn out a couple retinas. Whoops, he’s turning back to the screen. Good thing he’s not a Jedi Knight. That evil Sith lectern would be toast. I could almost hear the sound effects from that scene when Luke…
(sorry, got carried away)
Anyway, I think you see the point. If you’re going to use a laser pointer, use it correctly.
Post in which I use the word “Buttwipe” not once, but twice: Breaking Murphy’s Leg — Mom was so proud.
At a previous job, we had a roll of toilet paper, affectionately known as “Buttwipe,†that was thrown into the box with the rest of the art department’s supplies and shipped to every meeting we worked. The consequences of not performing this act of raw superstition, though unspecified, were too too horrible to consider.
Looking back on the last eight months and 21 days I’m amazed at all the ground covered and all the topics touched on. I’d like to thank everyone who had a hand in getting this thing off the ground — especially those who linked to it, took time to comment or contributed a guest post. Your support for what I’m trying to accomplish is greatly appreciated. I’d also like to wish everyone a happy New year!
The Presentations Council over at InfoComm International is surveying all of us presentation professionals:
ARE YOU A PRESENTATION PROFESSIONAL?
Compare yourself with your peers in InfoComm International’s annual Presentation Professional survey. This year it’s shorter, easier and faster to complete. Whether you’re one of many in a corporate setting, or a one-person shop wearing all the hats, see how you compare in the skills you have and the challenges you face.
To thank you for sharing your opinions and experiences, you will receive a free survey report by e-mail.
The survey is at http://infocomm.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_56aKHqv6ZbwQi3O&SVID=Prod . Contact marketresearch@infocomm.org if you have any questions.
It’s an NFL playoff game. It’s a win or go home situation. A player limps off the field after getting hurt. In many cases, it’s no big deal and he can walk the injury off before he needs to be back on the field. Sometimes, it’s obvious that he needs to go to the locker room for further evaluation and may be injured so severely that returning to the game is out of the question.
What happens when the injured player is still able to perform at some level but that level isn’t quite what it should be? How does an ill or injured athlete determine if he or she is hurting the team more by staying in the game than by leaving it?
I came across an interesting blog post comment the other day:
I sliced the tip of my finger off while in Architecture school 2 days before my final review, and had to give my presentation while all doped up. I kept pointing with my heavily bandaged finger, cracking ridiculous jokes, and fortunately don’t remember a second of it other than my prof telling me to go home and go to bed after vomitting in the garbage can. … I really wish someone had videotaped this! To this day, I still have no idea if I actually spoke about the building that I designed or not.
Stories like this beg the question: How does an ill or injured presenter determine if presenting while impaired will cause more damage than canceling, postponing or calling in an understudy?
Some presenters are so fragile that they shouldn’t be put in front of an audience when they have the sniffles. They are so distracted they make mistake after mistake and so miserable they threaten to draw down the energy level of the entire room.
On the other hand, I’ve had the privilege of working with speakers with Olympic-level strength and commitment.
One had been fighting a serious respiratory infection for the last couple weeks leading up to a high-stakes presentation. As he progressed through the PowerPoint, I expected each slide to be his last as his voice got rougher and harder to hear. Toward the end, it seemed to almost give out just before each slide transition. He made it through the talk weakly but flawlessly and then went back to his hotel room and slept for 24 hours straight.
Another co-worker was able to perform at the highest level two days after being hospitalized with a burst ovarian cyst. I’m told that this is something like the presenter’s version of a hockey player coming out of the locker room to finish the game after getting 20 or 30 stitches.
Both of these presenters insisted in fulfilling their responsibilities and, fortunately, everything turned out okay in both for both of them.
Would it have been better if they had taken themselves out of the game?
If you’re working in a team situation, is there someone designated to make the call when it seems like an understudy should fill in for an ill or injured presenter? Someone with enough juice in the organization to bench anyone? Someone who can consider each presenter’s health status objectively and who will be willing to take the decision out of the presenter’s hands if necessary?
Have you ever given a presentation when not at your best and wished you hadn’t? How did that work out for you?
 ©iStockphoto.com/diego_cervo Great Public Speaking: Humorous Acknowledgments To Tough Situations — “There will come a time when you will either be in front of a hostile audience or a hostile question will pop up during a relatively calm presentation. This is a tough situation at best and you have to handle it with kid gloves. Humor can save the day and maybe even help you become President.”
Talk It Up!: Second-worst hotel experience — “I had to call for the following services, which apparently didn’t come with the seminar room: lights to be turned on, projector, ancient projector to be cleaned, water (twice, only brought after I’d begun speaking), water refill, hallway lights to be turned on, bathrooms to be unlocked…”
MSN: Top 10 Tech Embarrassments You’ll Want to Avoid — “The technology-embarrassment stories you are about to read are true. Some names have been changed to protect the humiliated.”
Nick Morgan, Public Words: The problem with modern business presentations is an ancient one — “What’s happening is that both sides of this modern attempt to communicate are being hampered by ancient instincts to fight or flee.”
EventManagerBlog: 75+ tools for your next event — “Here is my gift for the holidays, the largest collection of tools you will find on this blog to organize your next event.”
VGAOK Signal Generator “is a small handheld VGA video signal generator and tester that outputs a simple color bar test pattern for the purpose of checking projectors, cables, monitors, and other related devices … There is not a good small unit for the quick testing done by general AV techs in the many situations in which a display and cabling are supplied, but the source is the clients computer that is not available during set up. This unit allows for a quick verification that you have Red, Blue, and Green Signals, as well as Vertical and Horizontal Sync.”
 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.
- A pamphlet to give to new clients that politely explains everything wrong with this request: “Can you just take a couple minutes to fix up my slides. Nothing fancy, just make them pretty.”
- A laser pointer with built in vibration damping so the audience can’t see when a nervous speaker’s hand is shaking.
- A project that, for some mysterious reason, requires the use of 35mm slides rather than digital files to remind us how much easier things are now.
- Gaffer tape that sticks perfectly to all hotel ballroom carpet but will never stick to itself and get permanently attached to your cables.
- A device that will automatically turn off all Blackberries in the meeting room so the sound system won’t be afflicted by the “Blackberry Buzz.” It might as well switch all the other cellphones to vibrate while it’s at it.
- A special alarm clock that one person can set that guarantees everyone on the crew will wake up on time for call and won’t get screwed over by hotel wake up calls that are requested but never made or by hotel alarm clocks that seem designed to be set incorrectly.
And the one I was really hoping for:
A magic spell powerful enough to counter the “Death by PowerPoint/PowerPoint Sucks” spell that just about everyone seems to be enthralled by these days. It’s not the program folks, it’s the people using it. Even a Stradivarius is going to sound lousy if it’s played by someone who has no business being on stage. Of course PowerPoint makes bad slides when the user lacks even a basic understanding of good graphic design practices. Of course presentations that use PowerPoint are going to be boring if the speaker doesn’t know how to speak. PowerPoint is only culpable for making people who don’t have the requisite presenting and/or design skills think that they do.
Your turn:
I’m sure there are a lot of great gift ideas I didn’t mention. What do you wish Santa left sitting under the tree that would make your professional life a lot easier?
 jaunted: Nothing Cheery About LaGuardia This Morning — “What were we thinking? Some crazy fantasy of Christmas at home drove us to attempt to fly standby this morning, in order to duck both the forthcoming East Coast storm and the just-passing Midwest storm. While there’s still the remotest chance we might be able to get out before our 2 pm flight, it doesn’t look likely–meaning we’ll be spending 8 hours in the airport today.”
Corporate Presenter: How To Be Professional On TV — “Just found this clip on You Tube. The American tv presenter inadvertently uses a profanity but gets away with it. No apologies, no red-faced embarrassment, she was just being professional.”
The Webinar Blog: Turn Off Your Blackberry! — “Everything seems fine during the call. Then I go to edit the audio recording and balance volumes and I find that there is a faint beeping noise being picked up on the phone line. This is a remnant of the wireless signal being received and transmitted by the device. It can get picked up by electrical cables, transmitters, headsets, and other hardware involved in the audio circuitry of your call. It comes across like Morse Code bloops and bleeps.”
TradeshowStartup: Even $137,500 Can’t Guarantee Conference Internet — “Le Web, the annual Internet trade show and conference in Paris spent $137,500 (100,000 Euros) trying to get a stable connection for their speakers, attendees and press room without luck.”
360Conferences: Conference wireless DOES suck — “At the Red Lion in Seattle, we made it clear, “Whatever you think, you’re wrong. We’ll abuse your wifi.” As such, for what we paid, they really did their best. They brought in a tech from the vendor and had him stay the week to be on call. Guess what? Yup, he was called. In fact, he came down in the morning in his PJs to put more access points around the place.”
Globsyn Business School: The Top 12 Presentation Mistakes — Lots of great things to watch out for in this article. “Mistake #1: Overlooking ‘Murphy’ / If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. This mistake basically means that you walk into the room where you’re going to present and something is wrong. LeRoux tells a story about a multimillion-dollar sales presentation to which “Murphy” paid a visit—in the form of missing curtains and a boardroom window overlooking a huge pool surrounded by bikini-clad swimmers (you can guess what the attendees looked at instead of the presenter). / Remedy: Visit important presentation rooms at least a day in advance. If that’s not possible, have someone take pictures from different angles and email them to you.”
BizBash Florida: Quick Poll: What do you have to have with you during your event and why?
Bunker Complex: “This is what happens when I’m slated to present my paper last. I sit and stew over my 3 page summary handout for 2.5 hours until it’s time to bumble and mumble my way through another botched public speaking task. I’m making changes and scratching out sections for a quick and dirty drastic edit as everyone else’s topic seems so much more interesting than mine.”
Execupundit.com: The Unpersuasive — “Your first job is to avoid being unpersuasive. A major mistake is to let a passionate commitment to a particular point of view create an image of stridency.”
Jay Raskolnikov: Lessons from a Two Year Old — “I don’t care what you call it. If you want to communicate with me you better figure out what I call it.”
My Toastmasters Blog: Public Speaking Trap – Losing the Audience after your Killer Opening — “Losing the audience after giving a killer opening is something I see many speakers doing on a regular basis. Whether the speech is given at a convention, a business meeting or a Toastmasters club, it is very common for speakers to deliver a fabulous opening, and then get very, very boring extremely fast.”
managesmarter.com: Debilitating Demo Diseases — “Here is a compendium of debilitating demo diseases that commonly afflict sales, presales and marketing teams when preparing for and presenting demos.”
A few scanning tips: Say No to 72 dpi — “We still frequently hear the very bad advice: ‘Computer video screens show images at 72 dpi, so scan all your images for the screen at 72 dpi’. This is incredibly wrong; it simply doesn’t work that way.”
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