Recently, I was at the receiving end of a presentation glitch. Not really one that I ever foresaw either!
I was presenting to a theatre full of people eager to learn off my every word (well, they paid to attend, so I’m assuming they were).
In my presentation, I was planning to show a video, less than a minute long, giving a few examples of what I was talking about. Pressing next to play, as I was assured by the technician it would… it did play, but not my video. It took me a second to realise it wasn’t mine, but laughing it off, I continued to the next slide.
Unfortunately for me, this was another video. It was another example to show people how someone else does it. Imagine my horror when all I could see on a giant screen behind me was a voluptuous woman with the word “orgasm” next to her, umm, chest. I was assured by onlookers after the session that it was actually a Cosmopolitan magazine video, but either way, it kind of threw me off my game a bit.
Taking a breath. I moved to side of stage, took a gulp of water, collected my thoughts, turned to start talking again and realised the video was still playing. DOH!
Laughing off the error and trying to reassure everyone that it was not my browser history that played the video, we moved on.
It broke the ice, that’s for sure! But it also had me momentarily stumble before needing to pick up my flow and carry on with the session. On every slide thereafter (no more videos) I was checking the big screen to make sure it was my slide playing not some other random info before I started talking. Sure it was a “fun” thing to chat about through and after the presentation, but I nearly lost my complete train of thought.
It turns out the rest of the presentation went really well with some great feedback and some lovely messages on the socialverse. Great. I survived!
So what can you learn?
You can’t really plan for every outcome. At least now I know what it’s like and how you can recover, so I’ll learn from that. I also know that when the technician says he’s got the videos ready that I sent over, to actually check the videos myself before going onstage.
So what do you do when it doesn’t really go to plan?
- Well, you’ve still got to plan. If you don’t know your story when presenting, for example, and a glitch like this comes up, you will find it hard to carry on. So practice it, a lot if you need to!
- If it does look like it’s all going south, take a second. It’s ok to take a breather, regather your thoughts and carry on. People would rather hear from a calm and collected speaker rather than a flustered rushed one.
- Don’t blame anyone on stage. Sure make a joke about it, but it’s not very professional and sets a bad tone if you go all negative on stage. Take the hit. Make a joke out of it. Get the audience laughing about it too. You’ve broken the ice, so unless it’s a major calamity, they’re yours.
- Check and double check. Ask to run through your presentation before it’s shown on the big screen. In my defence, I did… this guy just used the wrong videos!
- Keep calm and carry on. Overused on every coffee cup, tea towel, poster, t shirt etc., but it’s true. Just relax and move on. If you can pull it back after that, the crowd will not forget you quickly.
There are a million other top tips you can learn about presenting, but for me, preperation is key. That and knowing your audience. To help you engage with them better, have a look at twitter (for example) with the conference hash tag and see if there are any questions being asked or comments being made that you can either answer in your session or ask them more information about. People remember people. So if you remember them, you’re off to a good start.
Any of you that are new to presenting in front of larger audiences, I’ve experienced most of it now. Tough questions, slide hiccups, stories not quite going to plan, all sorts! So if you ever need any friendly advice, don’t hesitate to drop me a message.
And what a result, this amazing company @jellyarmchair created a great fun illustration of my session. What a way to create engagement around an event!
