Do not let technology get in the way the presentation.

For the life of me, i am continuously amazed as to how many precious minutes are wasted before and in the middle of presentations because of technical challenges. Laptop is not booting, projector is not working, projector is not syncing with laptop (extra points for Mac owners that forget the VGA converter) , the screen is not coming down, the video conferencing is not connecting, etc.

In the midst of an important presentation or demo, it’s easy to forget that the presentation technology of choice is just the means and not the end by itself. When preparing for a presentation, one must have a contingency plan for what happens in different scenarios incurring various failures ranging from the minor like projectors to major like power outages. For each scenario there needs to be cascade of options to keep the show going at minimal cost of interruption getting you through your main point in as much time that is allocated.

From my experience, here are the top 3  things that need to be addressed in your presentation contingency plan:

1. Variable length of presentation – it doesn’t matter what the invitation says, it’s how much time the relevant people in the room have. If there is one person in the room that has to “get it” and he has 5 minute because he is double booked, you need to have a 5 minute pitch after which you will start rolling back to the details for those who are there and demand the other 40 minutes left of the show.

2. Projector – decades since the VGA invention and we are still pleasantly surprised when our our laptop’s screen shows up on the projected wall like a baby playing peekabo over and over again. Get there 30 minutes before (don’t forget to let your host know to expect you early) and get that projector synced before there is anyone in the room. -10 minutes to the presentation is when you power the portable projector you brought with you (and you know works with your laptop). +5 minutes and no external projection options left, first try projecting on a regular screen for small audiences and for large audiences this is when you take out the printed presentation that you copied 15 times and hand them to attendees. Coupled with a whiteboard you do your magic. Demos can also be done with screenshots printed on paper in this scenario.
The above applies also to eternal question of  “Does this room have a projector? Oh, did you ask for one?  let me go 5 building away to dig that portable projector that may or may not come with a power cable but will not be here in less than 30 minutes anyway”.

3. Laptop/presentation – Needless to say laptops fail. Make sure you have an extra laptop that can run a presentation and a presentation copy in it’s original form (such as powerpoint) along with a simpler JPEG /PDF version that can be run from any browser. Store those versions both on a USB key as well as somewhere accessible online (meaning a place that can be accessed by any browser in the planet).

For web conferences – make sure you send an email version of both presentations to attendees before hand and don’t wait more than 10 minutes into the presentation to move the offline version (the one in which you have to actually tell people what slide you are on..).

Once you get through enough of these presentations in variable situations, you will start gather your own contingency plan (all the way to what happen when the presenter is not able to speak..).

Feel free to share if you got a good one!