The Friday Thing #690

Little did I know when I wrote last week’s edition that it would become probably the most popular edition to date – at least in terms of views and comments here on LinkedIn. Thank you for all the feedback and support. 

The Friday Thing #690 as promised last week is some tips on presenting. I’ll say from the outset that I am no expert here and still have plenty to learn but over the course of the last twenty of so years, I have done my fair share of presenting and technology demonstrations (aka demos). Below is a collection of things I have learned along the way with some context here and there as to when I how I learned them.

1.Know your stuff: This seems like an obvious statement but you’d be surprised how many people give talks/presentations/demos on stuff they don’t know that well. I know this because I was one of them. In my first few weeks of working at Microsoft, I was asked to present to a small group of customers in Scotland about the new version of Microsoft’s web server technology (IIS 4.0 I think). I hopped on a plane from London Heathrow and dutifully showed up at our small office on Queen Street. I setup in the room we had for customers presentations in that small office and fired up the ‘blue and yellow’ as we called them – the ubiquitous PowerPoint template of the time that was yellow font on a blue background. I was excited to be doing my job for real, in front of customers, only a few weeks into the job. There were probably about 12 people in the audience and about ten minutes into the presentation one of them raised their hands to ask a question. I was keen to take the question and show my technical prowess yet as the question came out, the blood drained from my face as it was quite clear that the customer knew a LOT more about IIS 4.0 than I did. I was totally flummoxed and responded saying I didn’t know the answer but would find out and get back to them. It completely threw me off and the rest of the presentation was a bit of a shambles. There may have even been a failed demo. I left Edinburgh that evening and vividly remember sitting on the plane home thinking I was going to get fired for being an imposter. For the next two weeks, I nervously awaited the call to usher me out of the building – but it never came. I felt like I had been given a stay of execution and from that moment on, I resolved to never put myself in that position again. It led to a rule I try to abide by – “that if you don’t know the topic better than at least 90% of the audience you’re presenting to, you shouldn’t be presenting it”. I say 90% because it would be foolish to assume you know everything about the topic or be able to know what everyone else in the room knows. It’s more a reminder that the bedrock of a good presenter is one who knows their subject. It helps you exude confidence and is the greatest barrier behind the fear that keeps most people from presenting – that they will embarrass themselves. That’s what I did that day in Edinburgh. However, by committing to not put myself in that position again, it made me a better presenter – because I committed to know my stuff – and that if I didn’t know my stuff, to not present. It meant each time I presented, I felt confident and got more confident that I could do this thing most people despised without fear. It such a simple and obvious thing that I truly believe is the key to anyone being a good presenter. 

2. The icebreaker: A few months later in my early career as Systems Engineer, I remember a customer meeting I attended with my then boss, Mark Croft. Those who know Mark know he’s a great storyteller and a great presenter. We were meeting with the senior executives at Kvaerner in West London and I was there to support Mark for some reason. We were invited in to the board room and Mark connected his trusty Toshiba laptop to the projector. But his next move wasn’t to fire up the ‘blue and yellow’. He just chatted with the group, engaged in small talk and broke the ice. In those few moments, his audience was on his side – they liked Mark before he’d even begun to try to sell them something. I remember marvelling at this and recognizing that the small talk was no accident – Mark had carefully planned how to break the ice with this group. Thus, I began to find my own ways to do the same thing – in recent years it’s been with ‘the wrong Steve' story but there are many others ways. The key to this learning is once more about confidence. If you have an audience who are supporting you, willing you on and smiling as you talk to them, you’re 50% of the way to giving a great presentation. 

3. Tell a story: What I learned from Mark was to kick things off with a story – and this is a useful way to think about your whole presentation. Before firing up PowerPoint, or Keynote, or even writing a script I have learned to think about what is the story I want to tell the audience. What is the arc I am going to take them on and what do I want them saying and feeling when they leave? Do I want to drive them to take an action or simply reflect on the topic? My favourite example of this was the Skype Translator demo I gave at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in 2014 alongside Satya Nadella. Though this was only part of a longer presentation Satya was delivering, and the Skype demo itself was only part of a much longer suite of demos I was giving, the story that preceded the Translator demo was key. Without it, I think the audience would still have been wowed by the technical capability, but the story gave it all context – it answered the Simon Sinek question of "why"?

4. Visualize success:  I remember preparing for that Skype demo – rehearsal was mostly a disaster (though of course it worked during the portion where we rehearsed with our CEO). Most of all, I remember the morning of the keynote. 16,000 people in the audience and a series of demos onstage with our CEO with some very raw, unreleased technology. What could possibly go wrong? In these moments it’s easy to let fear take over and dominate your thoughts. Over the years though, I’ve learned the power of visualizing success. I knew if this demo was a success, I would fly home to Seattle having come full circle form that Edinburgh flight. So, I paced around the arena most of the morning, going over the key lines in my head, visualizing what success would look like. I’d read that sports performers do this before going on their ‘stage’ and thought it could work for me. I remember I sat at the edge of the stage in the photo below, moments before going on stage feeling calm, ready, with just the little bit of nerves you need, allied to confidence that I had a visual of what success looked like. 

5. Bigger is better: If you have the option of presenting to 50 people or 5,000 people, go for the 5,000 option. I know this would make many people feel physically sick about the idea of presenting to such a large audience but the truth is, smaller audiences can be much tougher. Back to my experience in #1 above, in a small audience you’re obliged to engage with everyone in the room – face to face, quite directly. Plus, they can generally stop you at any moment to ask you a question that you don't necessarily want to answer. Or they can simply interrupt your flow. With 500 that's tougher. With 5,000 it’s virtually impossible. I’m not suggesting avoiding small audiences because they're essential to hone your technique of answering questions and building intimacy – but don’t fear large audiences.

6. Timing is everything: I know that’s a cliché and it holds true for the delivery of your words, but I mean timing in the broader sense. If you have 20 minutes, use 20 minutes – no more. If you have 5 minutes, take 5. Not 6 or 7. Again, I learned though painful experience on the Microsoft conference circuit in Europe that if you’re over time, people will start to get up and leave – which isn’t great for your confidence when people start to stream out of the room. The only way to know how long you're going to take is to rehearse.

 7. No apologies: I see this less often but when I hear someone begin their talk with a series of apologies such as “Sorry, I’m filling in for someone else” or “forgive me, I only found out last night that I would be doing this” or my personal favourite “bear with me because, y’know, these aren’t my slides” it fills me with dread. It means the presenter isn’t invested in their own success. If they were, they’d have declined the opportunity because they don’t know their stuff. As icebreakers go, apologies don’t tend to get people on your side. Sometimes these things are unavoidable of course, so if you do happen to be thrust into this position and don’t have a choice, give it your best shot and resolve to learn from it afterwards. But please, don’t apologize in advance.

8. Some notes on slides: Many of us use slides (PowerPoint, Keynote etc.) to support a presentation and that’s all well and good – they’re an effective tool if they genuinely do support the presentation. If the audience could get the same information from reading the slides without a person presenting them, there really is no need for a presentation. ?? That’s an obvious note so I’ll add one that is less obvious – be invested in your own slides. By that I mean either build them yourself if you’re proficient in the software but at a minimum really know the slides. Know them so well that you know what’s coming next before you click. Know them so well that when a slide appears, you tell the story of the slide and don’t read the slide. Know them so well that you know each animation and are never surprised by a transition. Know them so well that you know there are no spelling mistakes. And know them so well that you don’t have to worry about time as you have just the right number of slides for the allotted time. All of this is about confidence – in your content and your ability to deliver it. I’ve learned a lot from watching our CMO, Chris Capossela, and his approach to all of these things. What you present as well as how you present it is a reflection of your personal brand – so it’s worth taking time on. 

Okay….I was going to keep going to 10 but that’s already a lot of words, many of which have been shared by other great books and presenters over the years so I am very much building on that work and remixing with my own experiences here. I hope some of this is useful and feel free to ask questions or add your own comments & suggestions over on LinkedIn.

Thanks for reading and Happy Friday.

 -Steve