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It is no longer being updated.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 (08/03/08)

Speak Schmeak (yet again): The power of language (or, how I got in trouble for saying “pee”) — “But it has revived an old question for me: How far can you push the comfort level of your audience? ”

slide:ology: Tips for Remote Presenters — Great tips from Nancy Duarte for avoid problem while doing a webinar. “When delivering a presentation online, each application used to display your content is very different. Host a dry run of your presentation in which you click through ALL your slides. Many of the applications lose transitions, builds, and animations. What works in PowerPoint may not work in the application hosting your presentation.”

Execupundit.com: What Can They Do To You? — “Somewhere I read about an executive who calmed the fears of an associate who’d blundered by telling her, “What do you think they (upper management) are going to do? Burn down your house? Take your children? The most they can do is fire you.”

Arunn Narasimhan: Decorum at an Academic Interview Presentation — “The Laser pointer used by the nervous candidate should auto turn off whenever it is pointed away from the board and in particular when the candidate turns and addresses the gathering.”

Toastmasters & Etc.: Let’s All Introduce Ourselves… — “Do you want to start out a meeting with “Let’s all introduce ourselves” at the beginning? I’m not a huge fan of this in general because it can get kind of out of control time wise (or very out of control), even with a small crowd, unless you’re careful. Three little anecdotes about this follow.”

Speaking about Presenting: How to manage unruly question time — “Ask each questioner to state their name before they ask their question or make a comment. They’re likely to behave better.”

CenterNetworks: I’ve Had Enough of “Live” at Conferences — “When I spend thousands of dollars and my time to attend a conference, I am really not interested in watching the Qik CEO broadcast the session live to everyone without paying attention to what’s going on in the moment. I also really don’t give a rats ass what people outside the conference think of what’s going on inside the room. I want to have the speaker’s full attention. I didn’t have that today – not by a longshot. And again, I am using this session as an example but the issue is much more widespread.”

Working Blue: They tried to make me go to conference, and I said NO, NO NO. . . — “I’m slated to give a brief talk to grad students about delivering conference papers, so I thought I’d start with the usual “conference blunders” routine. There are some immediate biggies that come to mind, but I know I’m overlooking some more subtle problems of conference paper downers. Any that I’m missing? Here’s my list:”

Seven Red: Top 20 4C’s Presentation Mistakes (Part 1) and Top 20 4C’s Presentation Mistakes (Part 2) — “The Technophile – I see you there messing around with your brand new MacBook Pro. You’ve got the A/V hook-up working, and you’re testing out the video. You even brought those portable speakers so that we hear the audio clearly. Good. I’m the last person to complain about a little tech stuff at the presentation. But why, why I ask you, must the video be longer than your explanation of why I’m supposed to care about it?”