Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." This is especially true and especially painful when there is an audience involved.
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Presentation nightmares (British Airways Business Life) – "And another friend confessed to an incident when he tripped on entering the room where the clients were assembled, and spilt an entire – and extremely hot – latte down his shirt. In one swift action he yelped at the top of his voice and, in a bid to avoid being scalded, tore his shirt off. To stunned silence. Once the clients had assured themselves he was OK (presumably to avoid some sort of lawsuit) they said he could continue, and he had to give the entire presentation topless. They went with another company in the end"
[This reminds me of another wet T-shirt story that's very popular on BML. The article the above is from also includes a couple other short, but funny, presentation horror stories.]
Sexbomb’s scare… the Tom Jones Belfast show… ( Belfast Telegraph) – "The Welsh pop star was due to go on stage at the King’s Hall when he was advised to remain in his hotel due to a “technical hitch”. But the Welsh singer found out that the real reason he was being kept there was because of a bomb scare. When his wife asked him what was happening, he told her there were technical problems. … The show did go on eventually and Jones said it turned out to be a brilliant night." [Okay, most of us will never have to deal with anything like this, but depending on where, when and what you're presenting, you might need to take seriously dangerous disruptions into consideration when making your plans. I wonder what plans were in place to deal with this if he was already on stage when the call came in.]
How to deal with rough crowds: A stand-up comic’s advice for Sarah Lacy – “Lacy got to perform in front of a sober audience. She faced a bunch of nerds yelling at her to ask tougher questions. That sounds like a bubble bath compared to what road comics have to deal with. While I had tougher nights than Sarah Lacy, I didn’t have the blogosphere and video replays exposing my every flaw to the world. Nor did I have to suffer through every two-bit critic’s endless post-game analysis. For that I’m grateful. … If you ever find yourself in a similar situation here’s some advice on how to deal with a rough crowd.” [Given that our culture seems to be moving more and more away from treating anyone onstage with basic civility, dealing with potentially rough crowds is becoming an important skill to acquire and develop.]
When presentations go wrong and how to recover afterwards (OfficeRocker!) – “If any of you were at the Nottingham Technet event last week, you were a witness to probably the worst crash and burn I have ever suffered during a live presentation. I had put quite a lot of work into the presentation, believe it or not, and I had planned some 50 minutes of demo during my 75 minute session. As a bookend to my death by powerpoint tips post, I thought I might share the horror of the experience with you and how I picked myself up after it.”
My Apologies – Worst Presentation Ever – Elumenotion Blog – “I just got done with a Live Learning Web cast for AppDev on User Profiles and My Sites and it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly have been worse. … Thoroughly flustered and ashamed I managed to limp through the rest of the presentation on a machine with left over vestiges of a previous presentation with only one minor, but strange, security issue.” [Illustrates some of the problems you can have while demonstrating software via webcast. Includes a useful post-mortem.]
Keep researching because you might just surprise yourself… – Dahle Communication – "Then it happens. An expert in the field we are talking about who has done more research asks a question at the end of our speech that throws us off. It is a slap in the face – a dousing of cold water – we are caught off guard and now look a little foolish."
When the speech hands you lemons… – The Eloquent Woman – I arrived and learned that the room booked for the event was under construction, a fact omitted from all the booking conversations the organizers had had. (They'd in fact learned of it just within the hour.) The only available space was essentially a storefront space in the same building, nearly too small for the group, with tables and chairs packed in tight rows, and windows to the street so any passerby could watch us, if they cared to. Forget great lighting, and think street noise. Unlike the original space, this room also lacked a lectern, microphone, or projection. (Yes, I had slides.) … We'd planned to videotape the presentation, which involved putting a lavalier mic with a very long cord on me and putting the videographer in one of the storefront window bays. … There’d been just enough notice of the room change that an organizer was able to bring a projector from his office, and it wasn’t quite compatible with my laptop…
Ann Medlock: A Near TED Experience – "Arriving at the conference, I find that my wonderful pictures are in place but the TED-style head mikes aren't working; I'll have to use a hand-held. With a slide-changer remote in the other hand, that pretty much kills any natural gesturing. (Head mikes are the best, and I'm spoiled.) … On stage, gadgets in both hands, I look into lights so bright there's no connecting with anyone in the house. But boy can I see the big digital clock counting down in the blackness at the back of the room. The words start coming from somewhere and I'm off and running."
Remote Public Speaking The Right Way – CIO.com – "So imagine my distress when I discovered how nerve-wracking a solo webinar performance can be. By the end of it, I was out of breath, twitchy with nerves and having trouble swallowing—like a 12-year-old getting halfway through Debussy's "Claire de Lune" before freezing at the keyboard. (My mother never let me forget that one.)"
Worst Presentation EVAR | Phinney on Fonts – "I was trying to do a PDF-based presentation interleaved with a demo in InDesign, but my keyboard stopped working completely when I was in full-screen mode in Acrobat… meaning I also had no way to get out of Acrobat to do the demo! So I had to reboot, re-order my presentation on the fly, and improvise talking through from memory some stuff I had intended to do with accompanying slides, while waiting for my computer to complete the reboot and then for InDesign to launch (which last took 3x as long because I had rebooted while it was running). I also had a cold, so I am clearing my throat every 30 seconds. On top of that, the guy doing the presentation in the next room was REALLY LOUD and somehow his presentation included loud heavy metal music…"
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