When Presentations Go Wrong
I've got a really succinct opinion on public speaking.
- Do it. Find any opportunity to practice. Do it as much as you can.
- Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
- Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo
If you get stage fright speaking in front of others, then get past it. It really is as simple as practice, practice, practice, do it, do it, do it. But sometimes even that's not enough and some presentations can be ... tragic. Here are three of them.
When a young pup, I gave an early morning briefing to the Air Force after a night of "socializing". The worst cotton mouth I can remember. The words hardly came out ... and the headache ... oh the headache.
When a slightly older pup, I gave an unscheduled presentation to a customer about some new features I was really excited about. I guess I was so excited, the words hardly came out ... . The customer went with us, so I guess it wasn't too bad.
When a fully mature pup, I gave a presentation to our sales guys that used drones as an example of the clustering ability of our high availability infrastructure. The words came out just fine, but the nuance of the example went right over their heads. To this day, people will still come up and say they loved my talk on drones. I nod, say thanks, knowing that they missed the whole point.
I like to talk these days. And talk, and talk, and talk. But it is an acquired taste. Some are naturals, some are not. Everybody can get better. We've all seen our share of horrible presentations. The bar is so low, it's easy to be pretty good in comparison! Luckily you can watch some of the best and emulate them (Steve Jobs, TEDTalk(ers), Scott Harrison, Gary Vaynerchuck, Obama, so many good ones).
Become a great (or at least good) storyteller! And who can tell the story better than you? Nobody.
P.S. I did write about fear in this piece which I find helpful before stepping on stage. Here is another article on how deep breathing prior to the event may not be the best idea.
Curiosity and openness to change are the killer skill sets in the mid 21st Century Logitech B2B Video Conferencing
8 年So many stories to tell of demo's and presentations that went wrong. You just have to laugh at yourself and the situation. No one's going to die, and it makes for a great story afterwards. I say embrace the chaos, because you definitely miss a 100% of the shots you don't take. A few years ago I was walking onto the stage at an event for around 200 people. As I walked onto the stage the stage manager urgently whispered. "I know you were scheduled for 30 minutes, but two other speakers have dropped out, you've got 2 hours 20 minutes. Fill it" Of course I did, but people did some of my stories growth some details that day.
Global Client Executive - Financial Services
8 年How about a post about "When demonstrations go wrong?". Andy Calvert still talks about the day that a deal literally blew up in front of his face as I struggled to re-register a TANDBERG room to our Border Controller in front of the entire prospect's Exec team. We were supposed to walk away with a PO but all I received was a dry-cleaning bill. Agreed that practice does make better. It's dealing with surprise variables that makes All-Stars.