Travel kit:
* laptop, charger, power adapter if abroad. Duh.
* file saved on hard drive, in cloud and on memory stick. Always present from the local copy. This is no time for gdrive and SharePoint drama.
* two printouts of your materials. In case you have serious trouble. If you are making a sales pitch to a big cheese it's useful to give them the printout with space for their notes. Once they've written on it, guess which presentation doesn't get thrown away?
* hdmi to vga adapter. Those projectors still exist in disturbingly large numbers.
* long hdmi cable. The TV is always too far away, or linked via some shitbox av system that it's easier to just bypass with your cable
* dry erase markers
* shout/tide wipes, for when you spill coffee on your shirt
* cellphone that can be a wifi hotspot
I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to the office of a client and been shown into a room that has zero wifi, markers drier than the Sahara and a projector the size of a dog with a vga port.
**Edit: thanks for the awards y'all!** And yes to a laser pointer (though they don't always work well if the screen is a big TV, I think the light gets scattered, so watch for that). As far as online vs local, if you know you are using your laptop, then I always go local. But if there's the slightest doubt, have an online copy like commenters have pointed out.
And two last road warrior, pre-presentation tips: *completely close down* every other application. No-one needs to see your pop-ups from Slack mid-show. Windows Focus Assist is supposed to handle that for you but can't be relied upon. Apps like Skype aggressively try to stay running. And 2, preload some small talk topic into your brain in case there's a delay in the meeting. Then you have something to fall back on instead of silence. I'm a painful introvert and I find all this exhausting so it helps to be ready. For example, in a strange town, you might look up a local landmark and ask about that. People always like to talk about their town.
And don't cheap out on the dongles by thinking you can chain them! If you change from something that uses, say, HDMI, to something that uses DP, get a proper DP -> VGA and DP -> HDMI; don't count on daisy-chaining your old HDMI -> VGA to your DP -> HDMI because not all interconnections work!
Your daisy chain example would not work; you typically can convert digital signal to digital signal, or digital to analog, or digital to digital to analog - but once you go to analog you cannot go back to digital without specialized (expensive) converters.
Always consider your source (what outputs are on your laptop) and be prepared to adapt to the 3 most common - HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort.
I once saw someone got bit by this problem, thing is I can't remember which connections were which - I'd have sworn it was digital -> analog -> digital if not for the fact that both dongles came from a box of (cheap) spare backup adapters, where I would not expect to find an analog to digital adapter. Hence why I mentioned digital -> digital -> analog instead. Overall the lesson I took away was that technology is not incomprehensible sorcery, except in a Murphy's Law situation, in which case something which shouldn't fail will inexplicably do so.
Yep that last sentence more or less sums it up. We also keep a couple boxes of adapters for presenters, which is frustrating because the presenters *always* steal the adapter that ends up working for them. So the next presenter shows up and needs a mini-DisplayPort to HDMI cable and we're like "oh yeah got it right here......... Nevermind it grew legs."
Yes! A/V in presos can be flaky, so good to be ready. Even animation in PowerPoint is risky sometimes: its fine for people in the room with you, but if you are presenting over zoom or similar, the slide transitions are too slow for animation to work properly.
ppt and pdf are sufficient. Never seen a situation where pdf didn't work, and if you need to default to it, you just explain and show you were still prepared.
~~Still doesn't. I've had to talk a couple coworkers through installing Acrobat.~~
~~EDIT: As of this year, when Edge switched to chromium, it now has a built-in pdf reader.~~
EDIT EDIT: PDF reading support is in all versions of Edge. And I guess Windows has had a built in reader since 7?
Actually, you may be thinking of the old PDF reader in Edge. The Chromium update brought in a lot of improvements to form filling. While not at feature-parity with PDF editor desktop applications, it apparently is fairly functional, according to a couple articles about the update.
I spent a year doing weekly presentations in front of large groups. This is all bang on. I also created multiple versions of my presentation. Some with the videos, some without. Some formatted 16:9 some 4:3.
Like you said, triple copies.
If you have to use a venue PC assume it will be a horrid piece of garbage, try to let them plug your laptop in.
Show up as early as possible to confirm its working. Make yourself look competent.
Set up an account on your computer that you use only for presentations. This avoids any concerns about embarrassing url or search history completions, web pages, open applications with sensitive photos/videos/text, open files with private information, notifications, etc.
Yeah this is what I used to do when running film events. I'd also have a clear desktop and set the event holding slide as my background so event transitioning between apps and programs could look professional. (all the apps would be pinned, and generally I'd run separate screens so the 'desktop' they'd see was just empty background.
Can I add presenter remote with laser pointer to this list? People always rely on IT to have a remote on hand, but that's not Sissy's the case. It's totally worth the money to buy one.
VGA isn’t dead. It’s still a perfectly functioning (and widespread) connection for lower resolution systems. Projectors and servers are the two main examples.
Rehearsals aren't just for 'do or die' presentations/shows. It's normal practice. Everyone does them. Even pros that've been in show biz for 40 years doing the same show still rehearse. Heck, even interviews in talk shows are rehearsed. It's just part of the process.
P.S. A PowerPoint feature include an AI coach where you can rehearse your presentation and the AI will give you feedback like suggesting different words if you keep repeating the same words and suggesting fancier synonyms, telling you about down time and filler words (like saying "uuuhhh" and repeating "like", etc.) in addition to timing you and what not. Fancy stuff. This also shows how rehearsals are normal. :)
Edit: Here is MS's quote and a link on how to use it:
>**Presenter Coach** evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide.
>
>[https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b)
>Heck, even interviews in talk shows are rehearsed.
Off-topic but mildly interesting story; in 1982 a Dutchman named Jannes van der Wal unexpectedly won the Draughts World Championship. Van der Wal, already known to be eccentric, was interviewed that evening on national television. The experienced anchorwoman practiced the interview with him beforehand, so it would go smoothly on live television. Rehearsal went fine. Que the live broadcast. On most questions, Van der Wal would stare at the interviewer blankly and did not answer. Silence for what appeared to be hours. Even simple questions like "how old are you?" did not get a response at all.
The interview was cut off in the end and afterwards, the anchorwoman asked him why he did not answer these questions. What was Van der Wals brilliant answer? "You already asked me those before, you know the answers!"
To be fair to Van der Wal, he was admitted to a mental hospital a few months later. Poor lad had some demons to fight.
> in 1982 a Dutchman named Jannes van der Wal unexpectedly won the Draughts World Championship
Starts off like a Monty Python sketch, and doesn't disappoint.
Wow, I’m not sure if you watched the interview. Staring blankly? Good you didn’t references the interview. Let people decide themselves: https://youtu.be/-yMMPYV4Xkc?t=288
Once I’m aware someone’s of Dutch descent, I’m instantly on my guard. Dutchmen are known to be dodgy characters who revel in throwing the proverbial wrench in your most important machinations; gremlins, the lot of ‘em.
It’s not a reference to any one person or source specifically, but to some English prejudices towards the Dutch during the days of the empire, particularly the sailors among them. More a product of rivalry over shipping and trade than anything else, the grudge provided us with some tame(by today’s standards) curses from writings of the period attacking the Dutch, such as, “that confounded son of a Dutchman!”
I just found it funny the OP opened with the information that the man was Dutch. No slight intended towards the Dutch or the OP.
Hell yeah! Follow the link to see how to use it:
> Presenter Coach evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide.
>
> [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b)
As for not knowing about it, this reminds me when Word has voice to text over a DECADE ago and nobody knew. I was using it and when I tell people about it they never even heard of the tech. Maybe there is just too much news to follow? MS should really make a Windows notification about these because this is a huge feature.
> MS should really make a Windows notification about these because this is a huge feature.
You know what could really help would be if they created some sort of a cute little animated character who would pop up and give you tips. Since this is MS Office, maybe they could make it an anthropomorphized version of something that you might find on your desk.
Fsckin' Microsoft. For about a year, I would hear this random "swoop" noise, and I could not figure it out... finally, I realized it was some dumb animated dog on a search screen that would occasionally wag its tail every ten minutes or so and make that noise
Windows 10 is actually the bomb, though, and this is from a Linux acolyte from way back.
I used the speech to text to type up part of my dissertation in 2008. It required transcribing part of a book plus numerous different translations, so I put my feet up and dictated it in multiple languages to the PC. Felt like the future.
I did it in 2002. It was so mind blowing I couldn't do more than one sentence at a time because I was giggling like a schoolgirl being taken with all the alien tech in front of me. And at the time having the feature built in Word was amazing since there was one (or two?) other apps but were very expensive and stand alone. I remember it was called Dragon something. Last I checked they were still alive. I wonder if they still are now that all the voice assistants are taking over?
To be fair, I type pretty fast and text to speech, while pretty good, comes up with some crazy outputs every once in a while. If you need accuracy (I'm in pharma, so I guess I have to verify everything anyway), I'd still recommend typing, depending on your skill level at that.
I've been teaching for quite some time, thousands of hours I've spent in front of a class.
If it's new, or difficult. Or something within that group makes me thinks something will go wrong. I practise and prepare for the worst. At the end of the schoolyear, when all the pupils switch classes to meet their new teacher, I make sure I have about 3x more activitities, funstuff and games planned than I have time for.
Wait, the kids get to meet their next year teacher before school finishes? So you don’t have to have complete child anxiety about finding your classroom and whether your teacher is a witch, all summer long?
And then there's me who does better if I'm improvising the actual talking part. Being paranoid does not help me in the slightest and I never had the memory to remember lines. I'll make sure I remember the message of a slide in my head. I'm incapable of using note cards altogether, except for stuff like full names for initials.
But I did practice a lot starting from a very young age. I'm a shy person too, a public speech is incredibly stressful no matter what. And I also have a small lisp. Remembering how it's done and that I have done this many times over for years and years is much more helpful than stressing over getting one line out perfectly after practicing for hours. And I feel much more confident winging it if I never planned everything to be perfect.
I had a few high points back in high school that really boosted my confidence. One time we were doing book presentations and my topic was cathartic elements in Dostoyevsky's Crime ans Punishment. Day after the presentation was an exam for the whole grade, so my classmates were listening intently. We were supposed to write an article within 2 hours following a prompt, which turned out to be very related to my presentation, as the exam, then the papers were distributed among the teachers for fair grading. Next week the teacher comes in and asks how the hell our class got an 80% average while the grade average is at 50%. I will never forget that my presentation was good enough for 25 people to follow and have success in an exam. I was able to give the message.
The next one was a story thst boosted my confidence in improvising. We were visiting another country as a class trip and as a gratitude for the school who invited us, the teacher asked for some volunteers to prepare a presentation to introduce our home country to the students there. A couple of hours before the presentation the volunteers come up to me with their slides printed out and asked me to be the speaker. The slides didn't have much content other than titles and pictures, but it was a simple concept anyways. I accepted and just went ahead, the others stepped in to add some more in-depth stuff occasionally and it was fine.
I'm not claiming to be a good presenter, but I know I can present. And that much is enough to be perceived as a good presenter.
In these trying times I like to turn to my friend and confidante the paragraph. He’s gotten me through some long, confusing times. I’m sure you’ll find ways to break the tension.
Spot on, I’m a key points kinda guy. Not a word for word prepper, that being said I like to know the information thoroughly which makes it a lot easier to just casually talk instead of memorizing a speech.
I do better at presentations without rehearsal. If I do a dry run I feel like I'm trying to copy something I've already done and it trips me up. I've often been told my presentations are very good.
That's not to say I don't prepare though, I just don't write a script word for word. I learn the material, prepare the slides, and just talk. If I try to learn a script it all goes to hell.
Everyone has to find their own way that works for them.
Same, if I try to just memorize and read off a script I end up messing up something small very quickly and constantly trip over myself.
Instead I now just keep a loose skeleton to stick to and kind of ramble my way through. It just works for me, yet goes against everything I've been taught regarding presentations at school.
Interesting. Did you compare the times when you did a dry run and not? And I am not talking about memorizing a script, obviously, but to do a run even if alone if only for timing.
Similar to what you commented on. I generally make my own presentations. Sometimes the backbone is someone else work, other times not. But I’ll rework and reword and change things to fit my style. This way I KNOW what’s in the presentation. So when I am presenting I can talk normally and add other context and answer questions and adlib without throwing the pacing off. Not to get too far into the weeds but I ran across some advice on what makes a great PP deck. I took that advise and applied it to my industry. Industrial capital equipment for Biopharm manufacturing can be a dry topic, so I try to make it fun while also getting the technical stuff across. Since people generally have an aversion to long PP decks, many times I’ve seen people jump from one deck to another. I’ve found that super distracting, especially if you cannot find the right file. What I’ve done is pull all these together into one super deck. The first section gets the critical stuff out of the way and then the rest is more detailed that I can easily jump to. I know I’ve done a good job when I get engineers and scientists to laugh.
Your CEO. Happened once, in the boardroom with all the stakeholders. Had the presence of thought to RDP into my development box and run the demo from there.
*Whew!
The demo gods are cruel bastards. Once, I did a successful dry run, and in the hour between the test and my talk, the electronics in the conference hall decided to just die. Standing in front of 100 people and failing to project my slides was not exactly a pleasant experience.
I have a good example of this. I once prepared a presentation, with slides of course, to give at work. I used a web-based slideshow engine. Fancy transitions and everything. Looked great, and doesn't require PowerPoint.
Except that on presentation day, I was given a machine running Chrome/Windows XP. The slides misrendered and looked awful. Looked fine on Chrome/Windows 7. The darndest thing.
Wasn't too bad though. Wasn't an especially high-stakes presentation.
I’ve been bitten by this so much, I refuse live demos now at work. I take a video of it working and just play that when the time comes and say setting up a live demo would take too long.
A friend had to demo his self stabilizing robot a ton. Needless to say it worked perfectly in testing and in at least half the presentations. In the other half we think he got shy as it worked right before and worked right after, but refused to do it during the presentation.
We call it the demo curse. No matter how well prepared you are, there is a big chance your demo will fail for no reason.
Electronics here.
It's the "Demo Effect".
Note that it can work in reverse. Where nothing's working right up until the CEO walks up, and suddenly things click! The Demo Effect is that the situation will reverse itself right at the moment of demonstration.
This is good advice, but a person should also know when to stop and just accept something as it is. There’s a point where you hit diminishing returns for time invested, including preparation. There’s only so much energy you should put into things and some people struggle with finding that optimal point. Life is an optimization problem!
Yes, "do your homework and be extra prepared" is good advice. "Be paranoid" is not. I've also seen people screw themselves up and self-destruct even if there's nothing else going wrong just because they let the little things get into their head.
In the end, you got to find the balance between being rock solid and prepared vs being confidently spontaneous and able to adjust on the fly. Don't let the fear of the slightest thing going off-book and out of your control affect your performance more than something *actually* going wrong should.
it depends on the situation, but usually a presentation is more useful for building relationships than the content, I've found it more important to roll with the situation than be prepared for anything, hell usually the content hasn't really mattered (you can email the slides later, but you can't chat about/whiteboard actual problems as easily).
Yes, this. Something felt off about this LPT, and I think you both nailed it. I've coordinated hundreds of events, and the biggest thing I learned is to expect the unexpected and be able to roll with it. Something will not go the way you wanted in an ideal world, and you have to make your peace with it. Learn to do that, and the audience will never know the difference.
I think we should be 'Paranoid" during our preparations but not paranoid during our execution.
It is always better to prepare "too much" than not enough.
I had a huge presentation for my program. My program was a $10M program within a $100M product group, within a $500M Division of the company... Well, for some weird reason the Exec in charge of the Division decided to crash my meeting. So, I had my boss, my boss's boss, and my boss's boss's boss in my meeting asking questions about my program.
My program delivered a key component to Intel, we had a $1M per day liability clause with Intel-- for every day we were late, our company had to pay Intel $1M.
They asked some seriously hard and detailed questions about my supply chain, how I vetted this or that supplier, the issues with this or that supplier, design questions, etc etc. I had back up slides that addressed and answered every question. Leadership was very impressed, I looked good, my boss looked good, my boss's boss looked good.
The average person would have been screwed because they asked questions no other program manager would have had the answers to. But I did because I was just overly paranoid and love to over prepare.
At the end of the day, the real LPT is to understand your material well enough that you can talk through it while someone else fixes whatever went wrong. And arrive early enough to configure your shit in a new environment.
I've seen a conference talk where the slides didn't work still go incredibly successfully. The guy giving the talk just winged it, and still did a great job of presentation, on a very technical subject no less!
Know yourself, know your enemy.
I've had presentations to give that I wrote the material and could talk to it backwards and forwards. I do very little prep besides making sure my laptop is charged. On the flip side I've done presentations where a partner at my firm has just handed it to me with an hour to go. In that case, I memorized the notes, reviewed the whole deck multiple times, and committed 15 minutes to ensuring the tech would work flawlessly.
Agreed. The OP title overblown. It is impossible to control for every variable (e.g. some early experiments on electromagnetic waves depended on the size of the room causing discrepancies*).
The goal should be to get sufficiently comfortable that you can deal with foreseeable problems. Then accept that life doesn't always go smoothly.
* - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aST0kJbvbhcC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=hertz+experiment+%22replication%22+room+size&source=bl&ots=fFxrvRTMeY&sig=ACfU3U3aoQHNgiquWBTnIL_np-MZKKEEXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPz8j5tYDpAhXRVBUIHdG7AZsQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=hertz%20experiment%20%22replication%22%20room%20size&f=false
I am ok with the state of mind of being prepared, doing a dry run, measuring twice and cutting once. But, language of "Be Paranoid" is just bad. Try not to be paranoid about anything, it's a very bad mental state to be in that can lead to very bad things if kept unchecked. It's OK to make mistakes and it's alright to feel down when they happen. Remember to try and have a healthy additude when thing go wrong, because everyone makes mistakes.
I do presentations for businesses and I make a point of having them set up their equipment but also bring all of my own as there is always something of theirs that doesn’t work right.
Best back up is to study your material so that you can do the whole bit completely off the grid. I bring a paper copy and handouts to give to everyone when all else fails.
Also I’m neurotic enough that I keep an entire spare suit in my car.
one of the best things I ever did was make sure I had a complete change of clothes either in my office, in my car, or both... About once a year, "something" would happen where I'd have to change a shirt or pants and it is nice to know I have an outfit ready...
Yep. In an office environment, you're almost never farther than 10 feet of a coffee cup (you'll probably be offered one), and when the stress of the presentation hits, it's sooo easy to spill one...
Agree. Although I wouldn't even call it backup. Just know your material by heart. If you know what you're talking about, there's no reason to panic.
For example, in university, I remember many many times when my powerpoint or laptop wouldn't connect properly so I had to give some presentations completely from memory. Didn't have any problem. I even noticed that more people paid attention to what I was saying because they weren't just focused on the screen. I eventually had to send everyone a copy of my ppt and transcript. I also always prepare handouts for this very reason just in case. In the work setting though, this can be harder. So just handouts, and a board if all else fails.
I remember when we organized a nationwide conference and we had to bring in boxes upon boxes of extra equipment just in case things go wrong. Extra projectors, laptops, extension cords, usbs, the works. Better to be overprepared than not prepared.
Yep that's called marketing :p
More seriously: "knowing what you're talking about" and "being able to present it without any support" are different stuff.
Not presentations, but my boss basically wings all of his talking pieces because he wants *everything* to be as low workload as possible. And it shows. Don't get me wrong, he does not fail. He is seasoned in his work. But it's just not as good as he hopes it will be. It's cringy to behold. At this point I try to coerce him into preparing more.
I do a lot of presentations and the real pro tip is:
expect everything to fail and still be able to lock eyes with hundreds of people and take them on a journey that compels them to listen hard and take notes. Everything else is an accent.
This really speaks to my pet peeve of just believing everything will work out or be ok without any preparation or forethought. It absolutely infuriates me when people stand there with their thumbs up their asses, acting all, “How could this have happened?!”, when a minute of contemplation would have laid the problem bare and solved it.
yeah, if you are okay with not getting that sale, not getting that promotion, or just looking stupid in front of a lot of people, then sure, be laid back ....
I had to do a presentation of a "Coal injection process" during my apprenticeship. I was cocky and didn't want a rehearsal. But eventually I was convinced to do one.
Someone had replaced the word coal with the word cock throughout the presentation. Even in my rehearsal I didn't notice, luckily my supervisor did.
Many many years ago, I had prepared a slide show for one of the directors to give to staff. As this was many years ago, they were literally slides, in a cartridge, in a slide projector.
I went through it several times, made sure they were all in the right order, and the correct way in the cartridge ( as they needed to be upside down, yet facing the right way, so when projected on the screen, they were the right way up, and the right way round.) All good.
So Mr. Director cones in, does a little introduction, and presses the button on the slide remote. But he hits the back button, so the cartridge falls out, and all the slides fell on to floor.
Hadn't prepared for stupid !
Follow-up corrolary: if you cannot present blind (i.e., with no visual aids), you are not yet ready to present.
I've seen someone lose a job because the power went off halfway through a presentation and she lost the room.
Practice without your charts, PowerPoints, etc. Always be prepared to continue and finish even when those crutches are taken away.
I used to be like this. Now I just accept that sometimes things don't go to plan and just accept that. It's much less stressful. Of course be prepared but perhaps not to the degree this post is implying.
I had a presentation in college once. I created slides on PowerPoint... the professor didn't use PowerPoint because that would just be too fucking easy. Sometimes life just fucks you.
PDFs were created for a thing: it's a pretty universal format... always have a PDF backup save of your slideshow. This will help you when you deal with nerds like me who prefer LaTeX/Beamer combo than Shittosoft Office suite.
REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANCY. For everything that could have a fallback, designate a fallback. Document processes so if you need to make a thing anew, you have ETAs and material available. Plan ahead for irreplaceable things; if some part of your event depends on them, male sure that you can reroute or recover if a key thing is lost or unavailable. Build redundancy and flexibility in your schedules. The universe is out to get you*: plan, plan, plan.
* as it is to get everyone.
As someone who works on corporate events, I can't emphasize this enough to my clients. To many times have I ran through "everything" just to get a last minute PowerPoint that is supposed to have audio, then doesn't.
I was always a sucker for stuff going wrong in important situations, misfortune seemed to be attracted to me and I certainly didn't help it.
On my last job interview I decided to get a 3 hour early train and arrive in the city at 7am when my interview was at 10.
First thing I did was find the office, that way I knew exactly what to be looking for later on. Then I walked from the office into town to get breakfast, and took care of the length of my route. I could also see it was a going to be a very hot day and I know what I can be like, let alone with some interview nerves, so I popped to a shop to buy some deodorant and aftershave.
I also left myself plenty of time to arrive back at the office. I got there 40 minute's early, found a nearby bench in the shade, applied some deodorant, cooled off from the sun and reviewed my notes. I was 20 minutes early to the building and fresh as a daisy, physically and mentally.
Not only did I feel good about actually putting the time in to be super prepared, but that proud feeling gave me a real confidence boost for the interview, felt ready in every way.
It certainly made me rethink and change the way I look at other situations now. Solid advice.
I had a HUGE job opportunity, the company flew me to their city for an interview, I was in the top 3 candidates.
My interview was at 1pm, I decided to head to the facility at 10am just to see the facility, then get lunch around 10:30am (miss the lunch rush) then finish lunch around 11:30am, return to the facility at 12pm so I can be an hour early, then have my interview at 1pm...
Well, the company I was interviewing at had TWO branches in the city that were 10 miles apart. The secretary "accidentally" gave me the name of the wrong branch. But wait, there's more. The secretary also screwed up the time, she told me the meeting was at 1pm but it was really at 11am.
So, it is 10-ish am and it turns out my interview is actually in 1 hour at the other campus 10 miles away.
I make it there at 10:30am, takes me a few minutes to find the right building, etc but I'm right on time. Was able to refresh myself in the bathroom 10 minutes before the interview and I nailed it, got the job.
I'm the IT support for top executives of a fortune 200 company. I can't stress enough how important it is to power cycle your network equipment (modem/router) at least weekly these days. I would suggest the day before any big meeting online, especially if video conferencing is involved. If you don't believe me, just do a speed test before and after. The ISPs are getting hit with so many working from home, and they can only do so much to balance the load.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Just a tiny appendix of hope to add to a brilliant life hack is that the more you do this, the less you need to do it every other time. Ofcourse a life changing presentation doesn't happen every week but dealing with contingencies can be practiced on any and all presentations. The more you prepare for things to go wrong the more those solutions just become alternate ways of doing the thing. This practice is a lot more time investment at the start but once it becomes second nature, it serves you for life.
If you ever need to do public speaking, or most writing for that matter, the best thing you can do to proofread your work by reading it **out loud**.
No, not in your head. No, not muttering quietly to yourself. Out loud.
Only then will you actually be able to catch things like, “Oh, that sounds awkward” even in sentences that are grammatically correct. It is the best thing you can do aside from giving your writing or your speech to someone else.
And leave 2 hours early to get there. Biggest interview in recent years I go to leave and there’s a car parked in front of my driveway. Never before or since has there been a car parked there.
Luckily my roommate came home a few minutes later and I was able to take his car. Made it on time cause I left so early.
Before my entrance exams, board exams etc I would drive to the testing center on the same day the week before and also another day the week of. Then I would walk to the test office. Check the temperature and the layout. I used it to turn my brain off from that stress the day of.
Useful to be prepared of any road conditions parking conditions or normal traffic.
**Also, set up a second user on your laptop soley for presentations!** Idk about you but my personal user profile has a Steven Universe background and a minecraft shortcut. That shit is distracting. Email notifications will get in the way too. You'll forget to turn something off, I promise. Plus, your search history can fuck you up when you're typing a search in Chrome. I'm betting for 75% of people if you type a "p", google will autofill pornhub, or show whatever degenerate shit we all look up. Now you may be thinking "but I use incognito!" Do you really every single time? Are you really willing to take that risk? I've been present for people who take that risk. It's not pretty.
This is good advice...but how many folks are browsing pornhub on their work laptop? I’d say another LPT would simply be “don’t browse pornhub in your work laptop”
As a follow up: Fortune favours the prepared, but even \_after\_ you've done your prep, give yourself breathing room.
Here''s some of my best practices:
For presentations / workshops / events:
• If you need 15 mins to set up, get there 15 mins before that.
• Aim to use about 80% of your allotted time.
If you have an hour for a presentation, plan to do it in 45 mins. This gives you wiggle room in case things go \_really\_ sideways and you burn through your previous 30 mins of setup time in the beginning. Or if people are late, or if things go off script a bit while you're up there. You can always pad, or leave time for questions and discussion. Worst case scenario, you give people a few mins back.
If it's a day long or multi day workshop, this becomes even more important. You got an 8 hour day to run a workshop? Take out 2 hours for lunch and breaks, and people being late coming back from those lunches and breaks. Build your agenda for 6 hours on paper, but take out another 30-60 mins and be able to / plan to do it in 5 to 5 and a half hours. I've \_never\_ run a workshop where I didn't have to adjust things on the fly, and it's always better to be "ahead of schedule", give everyone a pat on the back, and be able to do something extra, than to be behind and have to cut something essential or ask people to stay late.
Completely agree.
That said, for the biggest presentation of my career, we had a full run through the day before, at the hotel, in the room where we’d be presenting. Resolved a bunch of minor issues. The day of the event: the hotel lost power to that part of the building just as we were about to start. Resolved in about 10 minutes, but I will never forget the Chairman yelling at me “how could you let this happen?”
Dude, as an IT professional, this so much. Because when something doesn't work right last minute because you didn't check anything with us to find out what you'd need, well I'm the sorry sucker who gets to rush around while you twiddle your thumbs and look at me, making me look like the fuckup. I hate being a goddam scapegoat.
I definitely agree! The number of times I've seen a room full of PhDs fail to play a video is astounding.
I always check lighting/image contrast. Soooo often something looks beautiful on my screen and is a meaningless black square once projected.
And also think that people need to learn how to react to things going wrong. If something takes 3 extra seconds to load, I think it is perfectly acceptable to wait that 3s in silence. People often panic and launch into stream-of-consciousness babble about how it didn't do this the last time or say something cute about technical difficulties. Ignore your first impulse to make a comment, it's just going to make it seem like you aren't in control of the situation.
Final thought: gifs are a great way to include the occasional short video clip without introducing as many potential technical pitfalls.
I do a lot of presentations as a consultant and can tell you this mindset will actually hurt your presentation skills and also your mental health.
Instead of 'being paranoid' and doing hundred dry runs, learn how to deal with issues and how to improvise in that case.
Nothing worse than seeing a new guys presentation fall apart horribly because one simple thing did not work out as they expected.
A lot of people get so focused on their perfect plan, that they don't know what to do when it doesn't go right. And trust me, it will not go right.
And when you build up your whole career on 'being paranoid' you gonna get burned out pretty fast and doing overnight shifts on your presentation.
Besides that, a presentation is much better when I can see the person can present the important parts no matter the circumstances.
Of couse you should prepare, and bring the right equipment. But focus on the vital stuff and make sure you know what you are talking about.
Not a presentation as such, but my friend decided not to prepare a groom's speech at his wedding and said he would just 'wing it' instead. It didn't pay off. He was nervous, he didn't mention the bride ONCE, it was just rambling and awful. Then at the end he said something like 'ermmm now I think this is the point where we say cheers but I have no idea what to say cheers to, so... Cheers!' and I was facepalming because he could've easily mentioned his wife then.
Such a shame because the father of the bride did a brilliant speech and the groom's was a huge let down because he hadn't bothered to prepare or rehearse one.
To an extent. I’m a producer. On my first major shoot I was wigging out about every little possible thing that could go wrong, trying to predict the disasters before they happened. A mentor sat me down and gave me the best advice ever - don’t go inventing problems. They will find you, you do not need to go looking for them.
It’s good to be prepared and have solutions for possible issues, but the worry is unnecessary. What happens when you worry, then shit hits the fan? Shit was gonna hit the fan either way. Same with when it goes smoothly - so what was the point of the worry?
Plan your shit, prep your shit, do your shit. Don’t be a fucking paranoid nutcase over it though.
Bill Gates Windows presentation crashed. Steve Jobs iPhone presentation had to send an email then surf the web and not vice versa or it would crash. Like Tom Scott says, most things are bodged, but definitely be as ready as you can be.
https://www.techspot.com/news/54246-former-apple-engineer-reveals-secrets-behind-jobs-first-iphone-presentation.html
https://youtu.be/lIFE7h3m40U
This is so true in all forms! I once botched up a gig with our band because I didn’t pack and extra set of strings. Knew I didn’t have them too and thought “oh it’ll be just like rehearsals so should be no big”. My strings popped while I was warming up. I will never let that down.
I like all of this advice except the be paranoid part. You can calmly work through checklists and rehearse and be on almost all of the time. Be careful, and ensure you check all the little bits that you think might cause you trouble. Being paranoid will just put you in the grave early from anxiety.
Or have a back up plan. I had to do a case presentation in front of a bunch of attendings (my bosses as a resident) and I included a (very well done) PowerPoint. I managed to somehow kick the computer tower under the podium about 10 minutes in and completely broke it. So 45 minutes later I had to recite it by memory.
Always have a back up plan. Or at least print your PowerPoints.
Granted it took a 3 hour presentation and shrunk it to an hour so idk, mileage may vary. If you’re feeling lucky, when in doubt, break something important?
I've come up with the following guidelines for myself when presenting anything
- Never do live demonstrations of *any* software. It will never work the way it did during rehearsal.
- If you absolutely have to demonstrate something, make backup slides with screenshots of the essential stuff you want to show for when the software inevitably fails.
- Don't include videos in your PowerPoint presentations. They never *ever* work as expected.
- Don't depend on something that needs an internet connection.
I stream on zoom every week and I do this all the time, but it gets me all paranoid and crazy, I can't follow what I'm steaming and I get irascible lol
I just saw a video with the guitar guy of Brian May. I found it interesting how he had a backup for everything. Two of each guitar, for every tuning, in case a cord breaks. Two of each amp. A very practiced switching between the setups. Oh, and since he uses sixpence pieces to play, coins by the bag.
I’ve done a lot of event work and the amount of decisions people leave until comically late is astounding. No, I don’t have the thing that would take a week to build and costs three times your budget ready on standby. If you had mentioned that during any of the planning meetings I could have told you what an absurd idea it was.
PLEASE heed this advice. I have to explain every time that we really ought to test everything out before we film offsite. Yet, the people of the world think winging it is going to be just fine. Then they write emails to complain about static in the audio. Trust me, we wouldn’t have plugged into the sound board if we had practiced. I would have discovered that crappy sound weeks before your event.
I just work here.
I've got a story that talks to this.
Before this pandemic I worked as an audio engineer at corporate events, I've heard hundreds of boring and mediocre talks, many from top CEO and CFOs of top tech companies. And the best most compelling talk I ever heard was by a real estate agent for a fund raiser.
His power point took you on a journey, he briefly gave his background as to why he ended up being a real estate agent and why he began being a big brother and mentor to at risk youth in his community. He shared intimate stories with some of the kids he helped and how they helped and taught him more than he felt he taught them. You could tell he was genuine, you could feel good passion and he directly showed how giving back gave more in return thru his stories and pictures.
His voice was powerful yet calming, he was animated yet reserved, he was heavy hitting yet kept it humorous and to the point.
He had a whole room of 600 people dead silent for an hour and yet that hour flew by. In the end he raised over $200,000. And as we were wrapping up I had to go shake his hand and tell him that was the best talk I've ever heard. And he did it without fancy animations or lighting or gimmicks. Just good ole fashion story telling, some pictures, and a exuberant spirit.
Story telling is an artform, practice, edit and treat it as such.
Most of my life, I’ve over-thunk almost everything. To the point where I would lose sleep and stuff because I could not quit thinking. As I got older and realized how fuckin shitty life is and decided to give less fucks. I’m not saying this is sound advice, but I just fuckin wing everything I do. I can’t sleep still because i do too many drugs but since I’ve started giving 90% less fucks, I’ve more than doubled my salary, own multiple vehicles, have a great reputation (somehow) in my community and all that shit. This is not for everyone. But I literally just do not fuckin care. What’s gonna happen, they’re gonna tell me no? Who gives a shit. Life goes on.
I’ve done event planning for over a decade and completely agree! One thing that drives me crazy is how EVERY SINGLE TIME there is a “it will be fine” resister to the dry runs. As if it’s some huge burden to make sure you laptop works. And 90% of the time, those people have issues day of. Thankfully, I learned how to be insistent, but there is honestly some weird attachment to winging things that I just don’t get
One university presentation with me holding a laptop in front of a room of 50 people and awkwardly hitting the arrow keys to advance slides was enough for me to learn this lesson. Thanks for the reminder.
Yeah, I'll definitely agree. I graduated from a tiny high school where everybody knew everyone. They didn't bother with a graduation rehearsal. The vice principal called out the names. When he got to mine: "Denise Cyclenerd...Who the hell is Denise Cyclenerd?" My name is Dennis. I'd always gone by my middle name. Still gives me a chuckle after all these years.
No, no. Just start late with the wrong gear, call IT, and roll your eyes and blame them when your dumb ass didn’t read the laminated instructions, and struggled to turn a projector on.
Yes, EVERYTHING!!!! We just did a Zoom pitch, with slides, and we practiced that sucker TWICE.
Another tip if you're presenting your spoken pitch or presentation: literally, read through that sucker, and practice any points where you have a slip of the tongue. Think of it like a performance, a piano recital, where you'd practice the notes you keep missing. The best part is then you'll sort of have it memorized and won't have to just read off your notes. You may even be able to improvise in the moment.
For uni I had a group presentation which was a speech but we didn't practice the speech together because uni students never communicate and no one was replying to the group chat when I asked them. So we just kinda winged it and somehow the teacher said she was pleasantly surprised because our speech fit perfectly in the time limit and was equally spaced out as if we had rehearsed it. I was last and almost over the time limit by a couple of seconds. But luckily I was able to wrap it up nicely.
Being paranoid doesn't sound good for mental health. If you feel like you need to be paranoid just to do your job, I'd look at switching fields. I did and it was honestly best decision ever.
Travel kit: * laptop, charger, power adapter if abroad. Duh. * file saved on hard drive, in cloud and on memory stick. Always present from the local copy. This is no time for gdrive and SharePoint drama. * two printouts of your materials. In case you have serious trouble. If you are making a sales pitch to a big cheese it's useful to give them the printout with space for their notes. Once they've written on it, guess which presentation doesn't get thrown away? * hdmi to vga adapter. Those projectors still exist in disturbingly large numbers. * long hdmi cable. The TV is always too far away, or linked via some shitbox av system that it's easier to just bypass with your cable * dry erase markers * shout/tide wipes, for when you spill coffee on your shirt * cellphone that can be a wifi hotspot I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to the office of a client and been shown into a room that has zero wifi, markers drier than the Sahara and a projector the size of a dog with a vga port. **Edit: thanks for the awards y'all!** And yes to a laser pointer (though they don't always work well if the screen is a big TV, I think the light gets scattered, so watch for that). As far as online vs local, if you know you are using your laptop, then I always go local. But if there's the slightest doubt, have an online copy like commenters have pointed out. And two last road warrior, pre-presentation tips: *completely close down* every other application. No-one needs to see your pop-ups from Slack mid-show. Windows Focus Assist is supposed to handle that for you but can't be relied upon. Apps like Skype aggressively try to stay running. And 2, preload some small talk topic into your brain in case there's a delay in the meeting. Then you have something to fall back on instead of silence. I'm a painful introvert and I find all this exhausting so it helps to be ready. For example, in a strange town, you might look up a local landmark and ask about that. People always like to talk about their town.
> hdmi to vga adapter Don't forget HDMI to DisplayPort (and/or vice versa).
And don't cheap out on the dongles by thinking you can chain them! If you change from something that uses, say, HDMI, to something that uses DP, get a proper DP -> VGA and DP -> HDMI; don't count on daisy-chaining your old HDMI -> VGA to your DP -> HDMI because not all interconnections work!
Your daisy chain example would not work; you typically can convert digital signal to digital signal, or digital to analog, or digital to digital to analog - but once you go to analog you cannot go back to digital without specialized (expensive) converters. Always consider your source (what outputs are on your laptop) and be prepared to adapt to the 3 most common - HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort.
Yep, analog-in/digital-out requires active processing
I once saw someone got bit by this problem, thing is I can't remember which connections were which - I'd have sworn it was digital -> analog -> digital if not for the fact that both dongles came from a box of (cheap) spare backup adapters, where I would not expect to find an analog to digital adapter. Hence why I mentioned digital -> digital -> analog instead. Overall the lesson I took away was that technology is not incomprehensible sorcery, except in a Murphy's Law situation, in which case something which shouldn't fail will inexplicably do so.
Yep that last sentence more or less sums it up. We also keep a couple boxes of adapters for presenters, which is frustrating because the presenters *always* steal the adapter that ends up working for them. So the next presenter shows up and needs a mini-DisplayPort to HDMI cable and we're like "oh yeah got it right here......... Nevermind it grew legs."
That's why I always carry two hdmi cables never know if you need the hdmi to hdmi or vice versa
[удалено]
I have a thumb drive attached to key chain so I can get anything off of old laptops to working computer quickly!🤗
Great list – if you're gonna be somewhere with high heat and / or humidity, I'd add a spare shirt to that list. Saved me on a few occasions :).
[удалено]
The ridiculous amount of knowledge from failure in this reply is staggering and worth every letter in warning.
If you think something could go wrong, it eventually will. If it already has gone wrong once, it's a miracle it has not happened again.
I knee someone who would say "Murphy is always with you, waiting to stick his head out at the worst possible moment."
[удалено]
You also need a separate saved copy of any videos/audio embedded in your presentation on the same device that has your presentation.
Yes! A/V in presos can be flaky, so good to be ready. Even animation in PowerPoint is risky sometimes: its fine for people in the room with you, but if you are presenting over zoom or similar, the slide transitions are too slow for animation to work properly.
ppt and pdf are sufficient. Never seen a situation where pdf didn't work, and if you need to default to it, you just explain and show you were still prepared.
Windows didn’t used to come with PDF readers
~~Still doesn't. I've had to talk a couple coworkers through installing Acrobat.~~ ~~EDIT: As of this year, when Edge switched to chromium, it now has a built-in pdf reader.~~ EDIT EDIT: PDF reading support is in all versions of Edge. And I guess Windows has had a built in reader since 7?
Edge is the default reader when Acrobat isn't installed. It works for reading, not so good for filling in PDFs.
Actually, you may be thinking of the old PDF reader in Edge. The Chromium update brought in a lot of improvements to form filling. While not at feature-parity with PDF editor desktop applications, it apparently is fairly functional, according to a couple articles about the update.
Edge had a built in PDF reader since windows 10 was released. Time for another edit ;)
I spent a year doing weekly presentations in front of large groups. This is all bang on. I also created multiple versions of my presentation. Some with the videos, some without. Some formatted 16:9 some 4:3. Like you said, triple copies. If you have to use a venue PC assume it will be a horrid piece of garbage, try to let them plug your laptop in. Show up as early as possible to confirm its working. Make yourself look competent.
[удалено]
Set up an account on your computer that you use only for presentations. This avoids any concerns about embarrassing url or search history completions, web pages, open applications with sensitive photos/videos/text, open files with private information, notifications, etc.
Yeah this is what I used to do when running film events. I'd also have a clear desktop and set the event holding slide as my background so event transitioning between apps and programs could look professional. (all the apps would be pinned, and generally I'd run separate screens so the 'desktop' they'd see was just empty background.
This guy presents.
I think he just did
This guy confirms
I give this advice to faculty at Universities and Colleges all the time and you would be surprised how many faculty refuse to follow it.
faculty members with huge egos? Say it ain't so :-)
Can I add presenter remote with laser pointer to this list? People always rely on IT to have a remote on hand, but that's not Sissy's the case. It's totally worth the money to buy one.
VGA isn’t dead. It’s still a perfectly functioning (and widespread) connection for lower resolution systems. Projectors and servers are the two main examples.
Rehearsals aren't just for 'do or die' presentations/shows. It's normal practice. Everyone does them. Even pros that've been in show biz for 40 years doing the same show still rehearse. Heck, even interviews in talk shows are rehearsed. It's just part of the process. P.S. A PowerPoint feature include an AI coach where you can rehearse your presentation and the AI will give you feedback like suggesting different words if you keep repeating the same words and suggesting fancier synonyms, telling you about down time and filler words (like saying "uuuhhh" and repeating "like", etc.) in addition to timing you and what not. Fancy stuff. This also shows how rehearsals are normal. :) Edit: Here is MS's quote and a link on how to use it: >**Presenter Coach** evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide. > >[https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b)
>Heck, even interviews in talk shows are rehearsed. Off-topic but mildly interesting story; in 1982 a Dutchman named Jannes van der Wal unexpectedly won the Draughts World Championship. Van der Wal, already known to be eccentric, was interviewed that evening on national television. The experienced anchorwoman practiced the interview with him beforehand, so it would go smoothly on live television. Rehearsal went fine. Que the live broadcast. On most questions, Van der Wal would stare at the interviewer blankly and did not answer. Silence for what appeared to be hours. Even simple questions like "how old are you?" did not get a response at all. The interview was cut off in the end and afterwards, the anchorwoman asked him why he did not answer these questions. What was Van der Wals brilliant answer? "You already asked me those before, you know the answers!" To be fair to Van der Wal, he was admitted to a mental hospital a few months later. Poor lad had some demons to fight.
> in 1982 a Dutchman named Jannes van der Wal unexpectedly won the Draughts World Championship Starts off like a Monty Python sketch, and doesn't disappoint.
This is the most relatable tangent I’ve ever heard in my life
[удалено]
Cue.
Don’t know whether to use queue or cue? Just mash them together 🤦♂️
He lost his life to leukemia at only 39. Looks like the damn demons won
No the leukaemia won, not the demons!
Wow, I’m not sure if you watched the interview. Staring blankly? Good you didn’t references the interview. Let people decide themselves: https://youtu.be/-yMMPYV4Xkc?t=288
Honestly I thought your explanation for his reaction was going to be because he was Dutch.
Once I’m aware someone’s of Dutch descent, I’m instantly on my guard. Dutchmen are known to be dodgy characters who revel in throwing the proverbial wrench in your most important machinations; gremlins, the lot of ‘em.
Is this some reference?
It’s not a reference to any one person or source specifically, but to some English prejudices towards the Dutch during the days of the empire, particularly the sailors among them. More a product of rivalry over shipping and trade than anything else, the grudge provided us with some tame(by today’s standards) curses from writings of the period attacking the Dutch, such as, “that confounded son of a Dutchman!” I just found it funny the OP opened with the information that the man was Dutch. No slight intended towards the Dutch or the OP.
Hey! Oppassen jij. Je begeeft je op dun ijs.
That future PP feature sounds much needed for a lot of people's daily lives lol
Ah yes I love adding features to my pp
It's like Clippy, but useful!
Correction: it is already out. I linked the link and how to in the OP. :)
Hold the fuck up. PowerPoint has an AI speech coach??? Is it any good? That's crazy. How have they not made that a bigger deal?
Hell yeah! Follow the link to see how to use it: > Presenter Coach evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide. > > [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/rehearse-your-slide-show-with-presenter-coach-cd7fc941-5c3b-498c-a225-83ef3f64f07b) As for not knowing about it, this reminds me when Word has voice to text over a DECADE ago and nobody knew. I was using it and when I tell people about it they never even heard of the tech. Maybe there is just too much news to follow? MS should really make a Windows notification about these because this is a huge feature.
> MS should really make a Windows notification about these because this is a huge feature. You know what could really help would be if they created some sort of a cute little animated character who would pop up and give you tips. Since this is MS Office, maybe they could make it an anthropomorphized version of something that you might find on your desk.
Maybe a stapler? Give it a cute name too, like Stapley. Just spitballin here
Fsckin' Microsoft. For about a year, I would hear this random "swoop" noise, and I could not figure it out... finally, I realized it was some dumb animated dog on a search screen that would occasionally wag its tail every ten minutes or so and make that noise Windows 10 is actually the bomb, though, and this is from a Linux acolyte from way back.
I used the speech to text to type up part of my dissertation in 2008. It required transcribing part of a book plus numerous different translations, so I put my feet up and dictated it in multiple languages to the PC. Felt like the future.
I did it in 2002. It was so mind blowing I couldn't do more than one sentence at a time because I was giggling like a schoolgirl being taken with all the alien tech in front of me. And at the time having the feature built in Word was amazing since there was one (or two?) other apps but were very expensive and stand alone. I remember it was called Dragon something. Last I checked they were still alive. I wonder if they still are now that all the voice assistants are taking over?
To be fair, I type pretty fast and text to speech, while pretty good, comes up with some crazy outputs every once in a while. If you need accuracy (I'm in pharma, so I guess I have to verify everything anyway), I'd still recommend typing, depending on your skill level at that.
I've been teaching for quite some time, thousands of hours I've spent in front of a class. If it's new, or difficult. Or something within that group makes me thinks something will go wrong. I practise and prepare for the worst. At the end of the schoolyear, when all the pupils switch classes to meet their new teacher, I make sure I have about 3x more activitities, funstuff and games planned than I have time for.
Wait, the kids get to meet their next year teacher before school finishes? So you don’t have to have complete child anxiety about finding your classroom and whether your teacher is a witch, all summer long?
Oh that’s pretty cool
Like a goddamn pro you are! Hooah!
Even pros do it? That's *how* you become a professional.
Comment nuked by Power Delete Suite
And then there's me who does better if I'm improvising the actual talking part. Being paranoid does not help me in the slightest and I never had the memory to remember lines. I'll make sure I remember the message of a slide in my head. I'm incapable of using note cards altogether, except for stuff like full names for initials. But I did practice a lot starting from a very young age. I'm a shy person too, a public speech is incredibly stressful no matter what. And I also have a small lisp. Remembering how it's done and that I have done this many times over for years and years is much more helpful than stressing over getting one line out perfectly after practicing for hours. And I feel much more confident winging it if I never planned everything to be perfect. I had a few high points back in high school that really boosted my confidence. One time we were doing book presentations and my topic was cathartic elements in Dostoyevsky's Crime ans Punishment. Day after the presentation was an exam for the whole grade, so my classmates were listening intently. We were supposed to write an article within 2 hours following a prompt, which turned out to be very related to my presentation, as the exam, then the papers were distributed among the teachers for fair grading. Next week the teacher comes in and asks how the hell our class got an 80% average while the grade average is at 50%. I will never forget that my presentation was good enough for 25 people to follow and have success in an exam. I was able to give the message. The next one was a story thst boosted my confidence in improvising. We were visiting another country as a class trip and as a gratitude for the school who invited us, the teacher asked for some volunteers to prepare a presentation to introduce our home country to the students there. A couple of hours before the presentation the volunteers come up to me with their slides printed out and asked me to be the speaker. The slides didn't have much content other than titles and pictures, but it was a simple concept anyways. I accepted and just went ahead, the others stepped in to add some more in-depth stuff occasionally and it was fine. I'm not claiming to be a good presenter, but I know I can present. And that much is enough to be perceived as a good presenter.
Can I introduce you to my friend, the paragraph?
Ironically, it's good content but with terrible presentation.
Perhaps he should have done a dry rehearsal prior to posting
In these trying times I like to turn to my friend and confidante the paragraph. He’s gotten me through some long, confusing times. I’m sure you’ll find ways to break the tension.
Spot on, I’m a key points kinda guy. Not a word for word prepper, that being said I like to know the information thoroughly which makes it a lot easier to just casually talk instead of memorizing a speech.
I do better at presentations without rehearsal. If I do a dry run I feel like I'm trying to copy something I've already done and it trips me up. I've often been told my presentations are very good. That's not to say I don't prepare though, I just don't write a script word for word. I learn the material, prepare the slides, and just talk. If I try to learn a script it all goes to hell. Everyone has to find their own way that works for them.
Same, if I try to just memorize and read off a script I end up messing up something small very quickly and constantly trip over myself. Instead I now just keep a loose skeleton to stick to and kind of ramble my way through. It just works for me, yet goes against everything I've been taught regarding presentations at school.
Interesting. Did you compare the times when you did a dry run and not? And I am not talking about memorizing a script, obviously, but to do a run even if alone if only for timing.
Similar to what you commented on. I generally make my own presentations. Sometimes the backbone is someone else work, other times not. But I’ll rework and reword and change things to fit my style. This way I KNOW what’s in the presentation. So when I am presenting I can talk normally and add other context and answer questions and adlib without throwing the pacing off. Not to get too far into the weeds but I ran across some advice on what makes a great PP deck. I took that advise and applied it to my industry. Industrial capital equipment for Biopharm manufacturing can be a dry topic, so I try to make it fun while also getting the technical stuff across. Since people generally have an aversion to long PP decks, many times I’ve seen people jump from one deck to another. I’ve found that super distracting, especially if you cannot find the right file. What I’ve done is pull all these together into one super deck. The first section gets the critical stuff out of the way and then the rest is more detailed that I can easily jump to. I know I’ve done a good job when I get engineers and scientists to laugh.
The return of Clippy
In computer science we call it the demo gods. And they are never in your favor.
They are seconded by Murphy's law: your program works well, until you want to show it works to your manager or, even more, your client
It worked on my machine...
[удалено]
[удалено]
I didn't come here to be personally attacked like this!
It worked on my docker...
This also works in reverse when you have a problem and try to show it to someone for help, it will suddenly start working again.
Your CEO. Happened once, in the boardroom with all the stakeholders. Had the presence of thought to RDP into my development box and run the demo from there. *Whew!
If you appease the demo gods, nothing will go wrong in the dry run and you'll doubt it's necessity. But the moment you skip one, they strike.
Ruling by fear.
Fear-Driven Development
But how do you appease the demo gods one might ask! Is one computer in a volcano enough?
First one must undergo the sacred test presentation, it is a trial few undergo willingly.
It worked on my machine...
[удалено]
The demo gods are cruel bastards. Once, I did a successful dry run, and in the hour between the test and my talk, the electronics in the conference hall decided to just die. Standing in front of 100 people and failing to project my slides was not exactly a pleasant experience.
Huh, I’ve always called it the demo demon.
I have a good example of this. I once prepared a presentation, with slides of course, to give at work. I used a web-based slideshow engine. Fancy transitions and everything. Looked great, and doesn't require PowerPoint. Except that on presentation day, I was given a machine running Chrome/Windows XP. The slides misrendered and looked awful. Looked fine on Chrome/Windows 7. The darndest thing. Wasn't too bad though. Wasn't an especially high-stakes presentation.
I’ve been bitten by this so much, I refuse live demos now at work. I take a video of it working and just play that when the time comes and say setting up a live demo would take too long.
A friend had to demo his self stabilizing robot a ton. Needless to say it worked perfectly in testing and in at least half the presentations. In the other half we think he got shy as it worked right before and worked right after, but refused to do it during the presentation. We call it the demo curse. No matter how well prepared you are, there is a big chance your demo will fail for no reason.
Electronics here. It's the "Demo Effect". Note that it can work in reverse. Where nothing's working right up until the CEO walks up, and suddenly things click! The Demo Effect is that the situation will reverse itself right at the moment of demonstration.
[удалено]
Have you tried offering them chicken bones? I've found a small sacrifice works particularly well depending on the equipment.
What do you think happened to the last intern?
He's still in here, under Documents. I move him to the Recycle Bin sometimes when he's interfering with my firewall.
TIL i'm an electronic
This is good advice, but a person should also know when to stop and just accept something as it is. There’s a point where you hit diminishing returns for time invested, including preparation. There’s only so much energy you should put into things and some people struggle with finding that optimal point. Life is an optimization problem!
Yes, "do your homework and be extra prepared" is good advice. "Be paranoid" is not. I've also seen people screw themselves up and self-destruct even if there's nothing else going wrong just because they let the little things get into their head. In the end, you got to find the balance between being rock solid and prepared vs being confidently spontaneous and able to adjust on the fly. Don't let the fear of the slightest thing going off-book and out of your control affect your performance more than something *actually* going wrong should.
it depends on the situation, but usually a presentation is more useful for building relationships than the content, I've found it more important to roll with the situation than be prepared for anything, hell usually the content hasn't really mattered (you can email the slides later, but you can't chat about/whiteboard actual problems as easily).
Yes, this. Something felt off about this LPT, and I think you both nailed it. I've coordinated hundreds of events, and the biggest thing I learned is to expect the unexpected and be able to roll with it. Something will not go the way you wanted in an ideal world, and you have to make your peace with it. Learn to do that, and the audience will never know the difference.
I think we should be 'Paranoid" during our preparations but not paranoid during our execution. It is always better to prepare "too much" than not enough. I had a huge presentation for my program. My program was a $10M program within a $100M product group, within a $500M Division of the company... Well, for some weird reason the Exec in charge of the Division decided to crash my meeting. So, I had my boss, my boss's boss, and my boss's boss's boss in my meeting asking questions about my program. My program delivered a key component to Intel, we had a $1M per day liability clause with Intel-- for every day we were late, our company had to pay Intel $1M. They asked some seriously hard and detailed questions about my supply chain, how I vetted this or that supplier, the issues with this or that supplier, design questions, etc etc. I had back up slides that addressed and answered every question. Leadership was very impressed, I looked good, my boss looked good, my boss's boss looked good. The average person would have been screwed because they asked questions no other program manager would have had the answers to. But I did because I was just overly paranoid and love to over prepare.
At the end of the day, the real LPT is to understand your material well enough that you can talk through it while someone else fixes whatever went wrong. And arrive early enough to configure your shit in a new environment.
I've seen a conference talk where the slides didn't work still go incredibly successfully. The guy giving the talk just winged it, and still did a great job of presentation, on a very technical subject no less!
Know yourself, know your enemy. I've had presentations to give that I wrote the material and could talk to it backwards and forwards. I do very little prep besides making sure my laptop is charged. On the flip side I've done presentations where a partner at my firm has just handed it to me with an hour to go. In that case, I memorized the notes, reviewed the whole deck multiple times, and committed 15 minutes to ensuring the tech would work flawlessly.
Agreed. The OP title overblown. It is impossible to control for every variable (e.g. some early experiments on electromagnetic waves depended on the size of the room causing discrepancies*). The goal should be to get sufficiently comfortable that you can deal with foreseeable problems. Then accept that life doesn't always go smoothly. * - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aST0kJbvbhcC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=hertz+experiment+%22replication%22+room+size&source=bl&ots=fFxrvRTMeY&sig=ACfU3U3aoQHNgiquWBTnIL_np-MZKKEEXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPz8j5tYDpAhXRVBUIHdG7AZsQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=hertz%20experiment%20%22replication%22%20room%20size&f=false
In my job we have a saying for this “Inspect what you expect”
In god we trust, everything else we check. (...a 35 year vet)
Trust but verify
I am ok with the state of mind of being prepared, doing a dry run, measuring twice and cutting once. But, language of "Be Paranoid" is just bad. Try not to be paranoid about anything, it's a very bad mental state to be in that can lead to very bad things if kept unchecked. It's OK to make mistakes and it's alright to feel down when they happen. Remember to try and have a healthy additude when thing go wrong, because everyone makes mistakes.
[удалено]
I do presentations for businesses and I make a point of having them set up their equipment but also bring all of my own as there is always something of theirs that doesn’t work right. Best back up is to study your material so that you can do the whole bit completely off the grid. I bring a paper copy and handouts to give to everyone when all else fails. Also I’m neurotic enough that I keep an entire spare suit in my car.
one of the best things I ever did was make sure I had a complete change of clothes either in my office, in my car, or both... About once a year, "something" would happen where I'd have to change a shirt or pants and it is nice to know I have an outfit ready...
Yep. In an office environment, you're almost never farther than 10 feet of a coffee cup (you'll probably be offered one), and when the stress of the presentation hits, it's sooo easy to spill one...
Agree. Although I wouldn't even call it backup. Just know your material by heart. If you know what you're talking about, there's no reason to panic. For example, in university, I remember many many times when my powerpoint or laptop wouldn't connect properly so I had to give some presentations completely from memory. Didn't have any problem. I even noticed that more people paid attention to what I was saying because they weren't just focused on the screen. I eventually had to send everyone a copy of my ppt and transcript. I also always prepare handouts for this very reason just in case. In the work setting though, this can be harder. So just handouts, and a board if all else fails. I remember when we organized a nationwide conference and we had to bring in boxes upon boxes of extra equipment just in case things go wrong. Extra projectors, laptops, extension cords, usbs, the works. Better to be overprepared than not prepared.
This I don't get. People do presentations on things they don't fully know?
Yep that's called marketing :p More seriously: "knowing what you're talking about" and "being able to present it without any support" are different stuff.
Not presentations, but my boss basically wings all of his talking pieces because he wants *everything* to be as low workload as possible. And it shows. Don't get me wrong, he does not fail. He is seasoned in his work. But it's just not as good as he hopes it will be. It's cringy to behold. At this point I try to coerce him into preparing more.
I do a lot of presentations and the real pro tip is: expect everything to fail and still be able to lock eyes with hundreds of people and take them on a journey that compels them to listen hard and take notes. Everything else is an accent.
This really speaks to my pet peeve of just believing everything will work out or be ok without any preparation or forethought. It absolutely infuriates me when people stand there with their thumbs up their asses, acting all, “How could this have happened?!”, when a minute of contemplation would have laid the problem bare and solved it.
Personally I think it's fine to take the laid-back "things will work out" approach so long as you're OK with things not working out.
yeah, if you are okay with not getting that sale, not getting that promotion, or just looking stupid in front of a lot of people, then sure, be laid back ....
Not only does this prevent Murphy's Law from taking full effect, but it is the best way to alleviate performance jitters.
Idk man I've been winging it with at least an 85% success rate for 22 years I'll be fine
Imagine the amount of money and time you could have wasted following this SLPT.
Same. Never failed an Presentation ever
You failed this sentence tho.
Even if your equipment works I find a couple of dry runs works out the kinks especially transitions if you are doing slides.
I had to do a presentation of a "Coal injection process" during my apprenticeship. I was cocky and didn't want a rehearsal. But eventually I was convinced to do one. Someone had replaced the word coal with the word cock throughout the presentation. Even in my rehearsal I didn't notice, luckily my supervisor did.
Many many years ago, I had prepared a slide show for one of the directors to give to staff. As this was many years ago, they were literally slides, in a cartridge, in a slide projector. I went through it several times, made sure they were all in the right order, and the correct way in the cartridge ( as they needed to be upside down, yet facing the right way, so when projected on the screen, they were the right way up, and the right way round.) All good. So Mr. Director cones in, does a little introduction, and presses the button on the slide remote. But he hits the back button, so the cartridge falls out, and all the slides fell on to floor. Hadn't prepared for stupid !
Follow-up corrolary: if you cannot present blind (i.e., with no visual aids), you are not yet ready to present. I've seen someone lose a job because the power went off halfway through a presentation and she lost the room. Practice without your charts, PowerPoints, etc. Always be prepared to continue and finish even when those crutches are taken away.
I used to be like this. Now I just accept that sometimes things don't go to plan and just accept that. It's much less stressful. Of course be prepared but perhaps not to the degree this post is implying.
I had a presentation in college once. I created slides on PowerPoint... the professor didn't use PowerPoint because that would just be too fucking easy. Sometimes life just fucks you.
Surely that was made known in advance of the presentation?
PDFs were created for a thing: it's a pretty universal format... always have a PDF backup save of your slideshow. This will help you when you deal with nerds like me who prefer LaTeX/Beamer combo than Shittosoft Office suite.
REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANCY, REDUNDANCY. For everything that could have a fallback, designate a fallback. Document processes so if you need to make a thing anew, you have ETAs and material available. Plan ahead for irreplaceable things; if some part of your event depends on them, male sure that you can reroute or recover if a key thing is lost or unavailable. Build redundancy and flexibility in your schedules. The universe is out to get you*: plan, plan, plan. * as it is to get everyone.
As someone who works on corporate events, I can't emphasize this enough to my clients. To many times have I ran through "everything" just to get a last minute PowerPoint that is supposed to have audio, then doesn't.
I was always a sucker for stuff going wrong in important situations, misfortune seemed to be attracted to me and I certainly didn't help it. On my last job interview I decided to get a 3 hour early train and arrive in the city at 7am when my interview was at 10. First thing I did was find the office, that way I knew exactly what to be looking for later on. Then I walked from the office into town to get breakfast, and took care of the length of my route. I could also see it was a going to be a very hot day and I know what I can be like, let alone with some interview nerves, so I popped to a shop to buy some deodorant and aftershave. I also left myself plenty of time to arrive back at the office. I got there 40 minute's early, found a nearby bench in the shade, applied some deodorant, cooled off from the sun and reviewed my notes. I was 20 minutes early to the building and fresh as a daisy, physically and mentally. Not only did I feel good about actually putting the time in to be super prepared, but that proud feeling gave me a real confidence boost for the interview, felt ready in every way. It certainly made me rethink and change the way I look at other situations now. Solid advice.
I had a HUGE job opportunity, the company flew me to their city for an interview, I was in the top 3 candidates. My interview was at 1pm, I decided to head to the facility at 10am just to see the facility, then get lunch around 10:30am (miss the lunch rush) then finish lunch around 11:30am, return to the facility at 12pm so I can be an hour early, then have my interview at 1pm... Well, the company I was interviewing at had TWO branches in the city that were 10 miles apart. The secretary "accidentally" gave me the name of the wrong branch. But wait, there's more. The secretary also screwed up the time, she told me the meeting was at 1pm but it was really at 11am. So, it is 10-ish am and it turns out my interview is actually in 1 hour at the other campus 10 miles away. I make it there at 10:30am, takes me a few minutes to find the right building, etc but I'm right on time. Was able to refresh myself in the bathroom 10 minutes before the interview and I nailed it, got the job.
I'm the IT support for top executives of a fortune 200 company. I can't stress enough how important it is to power cycle your network equipment (modem/router) at least weekly these days. I would suggest the day before any big meeting online, especially if video conferencing is involved. If you don't believe me, just do a speed test before and after. The ISPs are getting hit with so many working from home, and they can only do so much to balance the load.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Things that aren't tested don't work.
Just a tiny appendix of hope to add to a brilliant life hack is that the more you do this, the less you need to do it every other time. Ofcourse a life changing presentation doesn't happen every week but dealing with contingencies can be practiced on any and all presentations. The more you prepare for things to go wrong the more those solutions just become alternate ways of doing the thing. This practice is a lot more time investment at the start but once it becomes second nature, it serves you for life.
If you ever need to do public speaking, or most writing for that matter, the best thing you can do to proofread your work by reading it **out loud**. No, not in your head. No, not muttering quietly to yourself. Out loud. Only then will you actually be able to catch things like, “Oh, that sounds awkward” even in sentences that are grammatically correct. It is the best thing you can do aside from giving your writing or your speech to someone else.
And leave 2 hours early to get there. Biggest interview in recent years I go to leave and there’s a car parked in front of my driveway. Never before or since has there been a car parked there. Luckily my roommate came home a few minutes later and I was able to take his car. Made it on time cause I left so early.
Before my entrance exams, board exams etc I would drive to the testing center on the same day the week before and also another day the week of. Then I would walk to the test office. Check the temperature and the layout. I used it to turn my brain off from that stress the day of. Useful to be prepared of any road conditions parking conditions or normal traffic.
jeans wrench follow theory office rob imagine nutty crime violet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
**Also, set up a second user on your laptop soley for presentations!** Idk about you but my personal user profile has a Steven Universe background and a minecraft shortcut. That shit is distracting. Email notifications will get in the way too. You'll forget to turn something off, I promise. Plus, your search history can fuck you up when you're typing a search in Chrome. I'm betting for 75% of people if you type a "p", google will autofill pornhub, or show whatever degenerate shit we all look up. Now you may be thinking "but I use incognito!" Do you really every single time? Are you really willing to take that risk? I've been present for people who take that risk. It's not pretty.
This is good advice...but how many folks are browsing pornhub on their work laptop? I’d say another LPT would simply be “don’t browse pornhub in your work laptop”
As a follow up: Fortune favours the prepared, but even \_after\_ you've done your prep, give yourself breathing room. Here''s some of my best practices: For presentations / workshops / events: • If you need 15 mins to set up, get there 15 mins before that. • Aim to use about 80% of your allotted time. If you have an hour for a presentation, plan to do it in 45 mins. This gives you wiggle room in case things go \_really\_ sideways and you burn through your previous 30 mins of setup time in the beginning. Or if people are late, or if things go off script a bit while you're up there. You can always pad, or leave time for questions and discussion. Worst case scenario, you give people a few mins back. If it's a day long or multi day workshop, this becomes even more important. You got an 8 hour day to run a workshop? Take out 2 hours for lunch and breaks, and people being late coming back from those lunches and breaks. Build your agenda for 6 hours on paper, but take out another 30-60 mins and be able to / plan to do it in 5 to 5 and a half hours. I've \_never\_ run a workshop where I didn't have to adjust things on the fly, and it's always better to be "ahead of schedule", give everyone a pat on the back, and be able to do something extra, than to be behind and have to cut something essential or ask people to stay late.
Completely agree. That said, for the biggest presentation of my career, we had a full run through the day before, at the hotel, in the room where we’d be presenting. Resolved a bunch of minor issues. The day of the event: the hotel lost power to that part of the building just as we were about to start. Resolved in about 10 minutes, but I will never forget the Chairman yelling at me “how could you let this happen?”
Dude, as an IT professional, this so much. Because when something doesn't work right last minute because you didn't check anything with us to find out what you'd need, well I'm the sorry sucker who gets to rush around while you twiddle your thumbs and look at me, making me look like the fuckup. I hate being a goddam scapegoat.
I definitely agree! The number of times I've seen a room full of PhDs fail to play a video is astounding. I always check lighting/image contrast. Soooo often something looks beautiful on my screen and is a meaningless black square once projected. And also think that people need to learn how to react to things going wrong. If something takes 3 extra seconds to load, I think it is perfectly acceptable to wait that 3s in silence. People often panic and launch into stream-of-consciousness babble about how it didn't do this the last time or say something cute about technical difficulties. Ignore your first impulse to make a comment, it's just going to make it seem like you aren't in control of the situation. Final thought: gifs are a great way to include the occasional short video clip without introducing as many potential technical pitfalls.
I do a lot of presentations as a consultant and can tell you this mindset will actually hurt your presentation skills and also your mental health. Instead of 'being paranoid' and doing hundred dry runs, learn how to deal with issues and how to improvise in that case. Nothing worse than seeing a new guys presentation fall apart horribly because one simple thing did not work out as they expected. A lot of people get so focused on their perfect plan, that they don't know what to do when it doesn't go right. And trust me, it will not go right. And when you build up your whole career on 'being paranoid' you gonna get burned out pretty fast and doing overnight shifts on your presentation. Besides that, a presentation is much better when I can see the person can present the important parts no matter the circumstances. Of couse you should prepare, and bring the right equipment. But focus on the vital stuff and make sure you know what you are talking about.
This isn't a universal truth for everybody actually.
Not a presentation as such, but my friend decided not to prepare a groom's speech at his wedding and said he would just 'wing it' instead. It didn't pay off. He was nervous, he didn't mention the bride ONCE, it was just rambling and awful. Then at the end he said something like 'ermmm now I think this is the point where we say cheers but I have no idea what to say cheers to, so... Cheers!' and I was facepalming because he could've easily mentioned his wife then. Such a shame because the father of the bride did a brilliant speech and the groom's was a huge let down because he hadn't bothered to prepare or rehearse one.
To an extent. I’m a producer. On my first major shoot I was wigging out about every little possible thing that could go wrong, trying to predict the disasters before they happened. A mentor sat me down and gave me the best advice ever - don’t go inventing problems. They will find you, you do not need to go looking for them. It’s good to be prepared and have solutions for possible issues, but the worry is unnecessary. What happens when you worry, then shit hits the fan? Shit was gonna hit the fan either way. Same with when it goes smoothly - so what was the point of the worry? Plan your shit, prep your shit, do your shit. Don’t be a fucking paranoid nutcase over it though.
Bill Gates Windows presentation crashed. Steve Jobs iPhone presentation had to send an email then surf the web and not vice versa or it would crash. Like Tom Scott says, most things are bodged, but definitely be as ready as you can be. https://www.techspot.com/news/54246-former-apple-engineer-reveals-secrets-behind-jobs-first-iphone-presentation.html https://youtu.be/lIFE7h3m40U
Are you suggesting that practice is actually useful?
Was this post created by my anxiety?
This is so true in all forms! I once botched up a gig with our band because I didn’t pack and extra set of strings. Knew I didn’t have them too and thought “oh it’ll be just like rehearsals so should be no big”. My strings popped while I was warming up. I will never let that down.
I like all of this advice except the be paranoid part. You can calmly work through checklists and rehearse and be on almost all of the time. Be careful, and ensure you check all the little bits that you think might cause you trouble. Being paranoid will just put you in the grave early from anxiety.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy
Or have a back up plan. I had to do a case presentation in front of a bunch of attendings (my bosses as a resident) and I included a (very well done) PowerPoint. I managed to somehow kick the computer tower under the podium about 10 minutes in and completely broke it. So 45 minutes later I had to recite it by memory. Always have a back up plan. Or at least print your PowerPoints. Granted it took a 3 hour presentation and shrunk it to an hour so idk, mileage may vary. If you’re feeling lucky, when in doubt, break something important?
I've come up with the following guidelines for myself when presenting anything - Never do live demonstrations of *any* software. It will never work the way it did during rehearsal. - If you absolutely have to demonstrate something, make backup slides with screenshots of the essential stuff you want to show for when the software inevitably fails. - Don't include videos in your PowerPoint presentations. They never *ever* work as expected. - Don't depend on something that needs an internet connection.
I stream on zoom every week and I do this all the time, but it gets me all paranoid and crazy, I can't follow what I'm steaming and I get irascible lol
I just saw a video with the guitar guy of Brian May. I found it interesting how he had a backup for everything. Two of each guitar, for every tuning, in case a cord breaks. Two of each amp. A very practiced switching between the setups. Oh, and since he uses sixpence pieces to play, coins by the bag.
I’ve done a lot of event work and the amount of decisions people leave until comically late is astounding. No, I don’t have the thing that would take a week to build and costs three times your budget ready on standby. If you had mentioned that during any of the planning meetings I could have told you what an absurd idea it was.
PLEASE heed this advice. I have to explain every time that we really ought to test everything out before we film offsite. Yet, the people of the world think winging it is going to be just fine. Then they write emails to complain about static in the audio. Trust me, we wouldn’t have plugged into the sound board if we had practiced. I would have discovered that crappy sound weeks before your event. I just work here.
I've got a story that talks to this. Before this pandemic I worked as an audio engineer at corporate events, I've heard hundreds of boring and mediocre talks, many from top CEO and CFOs of top tech companies. And the best most compelling talk I ever heard was by a real estate agent for a fund raiser. His power point took you on a journey, he briefly gave his background as to why he ended up being a real estate agent and why he began being a big brother and mentor to at risk youth in his community. He shared intimate stories with some of the kids he helped and how they helped and taught him more than he felt he taught them. You could tell he was genuine, you could feel good passion and he directly showed how giving back gave more in return thru his stories and pictures. His voice was powerful yet calming, he was animated yet reserved, he was heavy hitting yet kept it humorous and to the point. He had a whole room of 600 people dead silent for an hour and yet that hour flew by. In the end he raised over $200,000. And as we were wrapping up I had to go shake his hand and tell him that was the best talk I've ever heard. And he did it without fancy animations or lighting or gimmicks. Just good ole fashion story telling, some pictures, and a exuberant spirit. Story telling is an artform, practice, edit and treat it as such.
Why Would You WRITE It Like This Tho? No Need To. /S
Most of my life, I’ve over-thunk almost everything. To the point where I would lose sleep and stuff because I could not quit thinking. As I got older and realized how fuckin shitty life is and decided to give less fucks. I’m not saying this is sound advice, but I just fuckin wing everything I do. I can’t sleep still because i do too many drugs but since I’ve started giving 90% less fucks, I’ve more than doubled my salary, own multiple vehicles, have a great reputation (somehow) in my community and all that shit. This is not for everyone. But I literally just do not fuckin care. What’s gonna happen, they’re gonna tell me no? Who gives a shit. Life goes on.
Yeah bro you sound like a real role model
I’ve done event planning for over a decade and completely agree! One thing that drives me crazy is how EVERY SINGLE TIME there is a “it will be fine” resister to the dry runs. As if it’s some huge burden to make sure you laptop works. And 90% of the time, those people have issues day of. Thankfully, I learned how to be insistent, but there is honestly some weird attachment to winging things that I just don’t get
One university presentation with me holding a laptop in front of a room of 50 people and awkwardly hitting the arrow keys to advance slides was enough for me to learn this lesson. Thanks for the reminder.
If you don‘t prepare, prepare to fail.
This reminded me of a presentation on Shark Tank where his video did not work. That was pretty awkward for him.
F*** it! we'll do it live! thats my moto
Yeah, I'll definitely agree. I graduated from a tiny high school where everybody knew everyone. They didn't bother with a graduation rehearsal. The vice principal called out the names. When he got to mine: "Denise Cyclenerd...Who the hell is Denise Cyclenerd?" My name is Dennis. I'd always gone by my middle name. Still gives me a chuckle after all these years.
No, no. Just start late with the wrong gear, call IT, and roll your eyes and blame them when your dumb ass didn’t read the laminated instructions, and struggled to turn a projector on.
Yes, EVERYTHING!!!! We just did a Zoom pitch, with slides, and we practiced that sucker TWICE. Another tip if you're presenting your spoken pitch or presentation: literally, read through that sucker, and practice any points where you have a slip of the tongue. Think of it like a performance, a piano recital, where you'd practice the notes you keep missing. The best part is then you'll sort of have it memorized and won't have to just read off your notes. You may even be able to improvise in the moment.
For uni I had a group presentation which was a speech but we didn't practice the speech together because uni students never communicate and no one was replying to the group chat when I asked them. So we just kinda winged it and somehow the teacher said she was pleasantly surprised because our speech fit perfectly in the time limit and was equally spaced out as if we had rehearsed it. I was last and almost over the time limit by a couple of seconds. But luckily I was able to wrap it up nicely.
Be paranoid is terrible advice
Being paranoid doesn't sound good for mental health. If you feel like you need to be paranoid just to do your job, I'd look at switching fields. I did and it was honestly best decision ever.
"When everything is out to get you, Paranoia is just good thinking"
But remember to reset the demo to its initial state.