PRACTICING WHAT I PREACH

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For those of us who teach presentation skills, we constantly emphasize the importance of being well prepared to give a speech or presentation. But do we actually take our own advice?

Yesterday I spoke at a conference and put my own advice to the test.

I had been told by the session organizer that I would be able to get into my room thirty minutes early and that I would have A/V support for the projector and microphones. Having nailed down those details well ahead of time, I crossed them off my list.

Arriving at the hotel a bit early, I settled down just outside my room to wait for the meeting going on in there to break up. Thirty minutes before my scheduled start time came and went; so did twenty-five minutes. As the clock was moving toward twenty minutes before start time, the meeting was still going on. I was thinking it would be impolite to interrupt the meeting, optimistically assuming the people in the room knew that a speaker was waiting to get in and set up. But at start time minus twenty, I decided polite was not serving me well.

I walked into the meeting, excused myself and said that I was the next speaker and needed to get set up. They assured me they'd be breaking up momentarily. Perhaps it was the look on my face...because just as I walked back outside the room, one of the attendees came out and said that if I didn't mind setting up while they were finishing the meeting, that was fine with them. I was back in the room and setting up my computer before that fellow got back to his seat.

Now where the heck was my A/V support? Off I go to the conference check-in area and ask one of the staff to get an A/V person to meet me in the room. Luckily the tech person appeared fairly promptly and set about getting everything hooked up.

Before presenting, I like to get a feel for the room in which I'm presenting and "get centered". I do this by standing quietly at the front of the room and "feeling" the environment. I also like to rehearse the first five minutes or so of my presentation "in the space". Needless to say, yesterday I didn't have this luxury.

So what's a presenter to do when things don't work out as planned, potentially setting up a rocky beginning to the presentation? Here's what I did:

1. I overcame my normal tendency to be polite and wait until the folks using my space were finished. I interrupted in a calm and professional manner to articulate my needs.
2. I let the A/V guy take over setting up the computer and projector and microphones. I didn't look over his shoulder (in spite of his muttering about my computer not having the right interface) but I did check everything before he left to confirm that it was working properly.
3. I did an abbreviated centering exercise seconds before people started walking into the room.

The moral of the story: I had indeed taken my own advice and was well prepared in terms of the content of my presentation and what I wanted to accomplish. This gave me the confidence to deal with the little unexpected glitches without letting them throw me off my game.

What are some of the glitches you've experienced before a presentation and how have you dealt with them?

[P.S. The presentation went extremely well, the audience was very engaged and I have a hot lead as a result!]

Comments

[Kare Anderson]

Kudos on AllTop!
Re this post, I'll bet you've heard variations of your experience Kathy from many full-timespeakers - rare perhaps considering the number of speaking engagements and the usually high-performance of most meeting planners - YET it happens.

Sometimes speakers from the prior session linger by the stage, talking with even a few people. They may have had a different set up - say using a podium, stage center when you don't use one. It is so awkward when you, the speaker, must as for the opportunity to set up because a member of the meeting staff is not there to do it.

You sure handled the situation like a pro