Breaking Murphy's Law

Social Media Fast

Lee Potts — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:22:54 +0000

On a social media fast so things are going to be even more quiet around here than it has been recently. See you after Easter.

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"Social Media Fast" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on February 21, 2012. Copyright 2012 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Overheard on Twitter: Critical event planners

Lee Potts — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:26:59 +0000

Have had technical/av problems today - not good for an audience of critical event planners #tse2012
— KathyPhelps (@KathyPhelps) January 24, 2012

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"Overheard on Twitter: Critical event planners" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on January 24, 2012. Copyright 2012 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

PowerPoint Ninja: “Emergency Preparedness for PowerPoint”

Lee Potts — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:20:39 +0000

Brent Dykes, The PowerPoint Ninja, strikes at the dark heart of a potential presentation disaster with this story of uncooperative hardware and a decidedly nonsupportive support person:

What I didn’t anticipate was that the presentation remote would only work with the desktop computer in the auditorium.

No problem. I had all of the presentations also loaded on to a USB flash drive so I could transfer the files on to the desktop. However, in its infinite wisdom, the university’s IT group blocked any files from being installed on the desktop including a font file that one of the teams needed. After explaining the situation to an IT “support” person, he indicated nothing could be done before our event started. Aaagggh. Luckily, someone had brought their own presentation remote so we could just run the presentations from my laptop.

Often it’s easier said than done “to be prepared”, but we often focus so much on the actual presentation itself and forget the other small technical details that can completely ruin our beautiful slides and well-rehearsed thoughts. In reflecting on this recent situation, I had several takeaways for presenters who want to be more prepared for PowerPoint emergencies…

Check out the full post for Brent’s outstanding suggestions for being prepared when things like this happen.

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Categories: Pre-presentation, Problems with Equipment, Problems with People, Problems with Software
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"PowerPoint Ninja: “Emergency Preparedness for PowerPoint”" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on December 29, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Overheard on Twitter: Never trust the venue!

Lee Potts — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 04:06:14 +0000

#presentations tip: never trust the venue! :)Take your own kit as far as poss. That way you know it works AND how to work it
— Simon Raybould (@presentations) November 22, 2011

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"Overheard on Twitter: Never trust the venue!" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on December 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Playing keep away…

Lee Potts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:31:13 +0000

Keep the cup of coffee away from the equipment.

Keep the welcome reception away from the speaker’s slide review session.

Keep the speaker’s flight time away from the meeting’s start time.

Keep the USB drive with your presentation on it away from the washing machine.

Keep the social media apps with potentially indiscreet popups away from your show laptop.

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"Playing keep away…" was originally posted on Breaking Murphy's Law on November 28, 2011. Copyright 2011 Lee Potts and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.