Countdown to a presentation

I finished last week with a big presentation – it was a freebie, right to our target audience (almost all of them in one room at once), so it was officially ‘a big deal’.  And because it was a such an important gig for us, I can remember pretty clearly the run up to it.

So – for the comparison of experts and the instruction of anyone who’s just generally interested…  :)

Three weeks before the gig – agreed with the AV guys that I was going to be using my own laptop, rather than sending them my PowerPoint slides two weeks in advance. That means that he’s got to use a vision mixer to crossfade between my laptop and the laptop he was using for the other speakers but it means I can get to use my laptop (in presenter view) as a confidence monitor. Score!

Two weeks before the gig – send the organiser a specially written document which supported my slides.  Originally I’d been asked for my slides so that they could be printed and included in the conference pack but I don’t like doing that. Firstly, making notes on slides isn’t the most efficient way of helping people remember what I said (a specially designed document with notes and space to write is better) but also it means that I can hold the ‘surprise’ slides as, well, surprises!

The additional advantage, of course, as a professional, is that I can include my website and phone number in the running footer of the document…

The day before the gig – arrive at about six, check in to my suite (yes, really, not just a room… I had to send text messages to friends saying they must have mistaken me for a grown-up!), check out the venue very briefly, then have a swim, a drink and go to the conference dinner… after going through my slides (again!)

Bed by 11:30!  I’m a good boy!

06:30 – wake up, read, doze

06:45 – give up on dozing because of the TV in the next room, get up, shave, pack the clothing I don’t need, generally muck about and go through my slides, just one more time… and making a change (gulp!)

07:20 – swim, pack, eat breakfast and check out

08:30 – meet the conference organiser and the AV specialist in the venue and check everything works. It does. We go through my slides to make sure they’re TV-safe. (The conference is being back-projected, which means that we lose about 5% to 10% of the image around the edge of the screen.  Mine are safe, obviously.)  There’s one image which we check carefully because the colour saturation isn’t quite as high as it would be in an ideal world, with his projector.  Everything’s fine though.

09:00 – do the meet and greet bits with the other delegates… and then slide off quietly to find a bit of piece and quiet to get my head completely straight.

09:45 – the day’s presentations begin, with me sliding into my carefully labeled seat on the podium at the last minute, wishing I’d arrived five minutes earlier so I could have grabbed a few of the sweets in the jar at the front of the table.  As the other presenters deliver their material I listen carefully and take notes.  It’s not easy to see their slides from where we’ve been placed but it can be done.

I take notes on the back of some old postcard-sized publicity material I used last year, jotting down key phrases and things to refer to.  I use the A6 sized card for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, card doesn’t flop, shuffle or scrape in the same annoying way as paper does, and secondly, when it’s my slot I can hold A6-sized card in my hand as a prompt for the opening to my presentation, when I link back to previous presenters. The result is a customised ‘live’ introduction to my presentation when it’s my turn and I’m going to be able to quote the previous speakers, so my slot feels more integrated into the day.  That’s particularly important as I’m ‘headlining’ and closing the conference!

11:00 – when everyone else takes their coffee break I take a quick break for a cup of tea and so on then back to the AV guy to wire myself up with the radio mic.  Check it on stage to make sure there’s plenty of space between me and anything that could interfere withe the mic’s radio signal.  All’s well.

But I discover that the way the previous speakers have moved the lectern my laptop can’t be seen from the stage (I’m not going to be behind the lectern, it’s just in the way) so we hastily get an extension for the VGA cable to the laptop and put it on the floor of the stage.

Check everything. Again.

Warm up.

11:30 – listen to the previous speaker as before. Towards the end of her presentation I hide my mouth and start to do some warmups of my face/lips. I make a point of not fussing and distracting the audience while I put the cards I’ve made notes on into order – changing from purely chronological to a bit of a theme… I re-write one to make the writing easier to read! (Handwriting was never my strong point).

Then some nerve-control exercises…..

12:30 – it’s showtime!

13:00 – I breathe, take questions and we all head for lunch!  Actually, they head for lunch while I hang around and talk to people with questions they were too shy to ask in public.  I’ve already put a special document on my company website for people who were here at the conference and some people come to me for hardcopies, because they can’t (for whatever reason) access the online version.