Breathe
This last week, I got to give a presentation in the office. Time to get the conference room set up was short, but the slides were ready and I had practiced ahead of time. It was one of those days where there were back-to-back meetings with other responsibilities keeping me running around.
It happens. It goes with the territory.
Well, when it came time for the presentation, I was scrambling to get the laptop set up, the virtual machine launched, and everything else that needed to be hooked up hooked up. Desptie all this, there was a good reason to not abandon the slides. There were some key visuals in there, that if not used, would have made comprehension of the material much, much more difficult.
After I got everything all set up and configured, I was already 5 or so minutes late in getting started. As soon as I was sure that everything was set to go, I started with my presentation.
Big mistake.
With the adrenaline pumping from the effort to get set up as quickly as possible, I dove right into the talk without giving myself a chance to catch a breath. I was a few words per minute slower than John Moschitta in the famous FedEx commercials. OK, that's a bit of an exageration, but you get the idea. If I had taken just ten seconds to catch my breath, my pace would have been more measured and would have conveyed the confidence and authority that I needed.
Ten seconds out of a twenty minute presentation in a fourty-five minute meeting.
If circumstances out of your control force you to rush to get set up, invest in a brief pause to catch your breath and relax. You don't have to look like you're doing it. You can also use it as a moment to get your audience to get quiet to listen to you.
Image credit: dlemieux, used under a Creative Commons license.
My Thoughts On the MacWorld Keynote
In this post, I'm not going to focus on the products that were announced. Granted I can't wait to see the changes to Keynote beyond what was discussed, but I'm more interested at this moment in Phil Shiller's delivery of the keynote itself.
Early on in his pitch, it was clear that he was nervous. He was racing along at a fast pace and at about 6 minutes and 40 seconds into it, he turned back at the screen, not to point something out, but to gain a visual cue for himself. It's a classic example of someone whose nerves are getting the better of them. However, as time went on, it was obvious that he was starting to hit a groove and feel more comfortable up there. In the end, he seemed on his game and did as good a job as anyone could be expected to (except Steve Jobs himself, but Phil's not Steve).
One thing he did do, though, that I couldn't help but to notice every time he advanced to the next slide is he held his remote out there for all to see and made sure, unconsciously, I'm certain, that we all saw him click that remote. You can hold remotes like that more discreetly such that even if your audience knows you have a remote, they're not focusing on it and each time you move to the next slide it appears to be through the very magic you're trying to create on stage.
Yes this has got to be one of my shorter posts in this category, but not every one needs to exceed 1,000 words. 
Did you see anything else that Phil Shiller did well or could have done better?
