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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This blog was active from April, 2008 to July 2012.
It is no longer being updated. It will continue to be maintained for reference purposes.

The Weekly Might Have Missed List (07/05/09)

MadTV — Drunk Powerpoint Presentation (Somewhat NSFW)

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 bitten by Murphy’s Law.

It seems that I pulled a chapter from the course management system while the other developer had been working on a different chapter in our common work area

Pivotal Public Speaking — Funny Presentation Training – how many errors can you find?

This is a video produced by a presentation training company as an example of how NOT to make a PowerPoint presentation.

PPTools — Keep the session alive (prevent screensaver, logout problems, mouse jiggler)

Occasionally we get questions about how to keep the screensaver from kicking in, usually from people whose corporate IT people have locked down the computer to the point where they can’t change the screen saver settings themselves. In other cases, the computer may log them out after a period of inactivity.

Blue Room technical forum — Fire alarms vs. haze…

Hit a minor issue at the place I’m currently working at today, as I managed to evacuate the entire school when demonstrating the haze machine… I’m fully aware of the cap over the sensor or isolating the particular part of the building that the haze machine is being used in to solve this problem, but the school (despite a huge amount of persuasion from me) don’t want to do either of those, as they are concerned for the risk implications.

Nothing To Do With Arbroath —Missing cat appears on BBC1’s Question Time

A cat owner only realised her ginger Tom was missing when a friend rang to say she had just seen him – live on television. Tango appeared on screen on BBC1’s Question Time as David Dimbleby, politicians and pundits discussed topics as diverse as the wearing of burkhas, the situation in Iran and MP’s expenses.

The Weekly Might Have Missed List (01/11/09)

Brad Montgomery’s Laugh-O-Nomics: Meeting Planner Sabotages Keynote Speaker

©iStockphoto.com/design56

©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.”  I thought she was joking.  “You’re kidding, right?”    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.