Nobody is going to disagree with you, when you're trying to run a business presentation/workshop/seminar and your "assisting" technology fails you: it's a problem.
But our reactions can make our problems worse.
How to save your business presentation even when technology fails you:
- It's tempting to use sarcasm in between cursing failing technology, but it is unprofessional. Focus your efforts on solving the problem.
- While it's important to talk yourself through fixing the technological problem, keep your comments in your head. Mumbling makes you look nervous and will put your audience ill-at-ease (much more so than silence).
- Once you've tried to fix it yourself, ask only one person for help. The last thing you want is conflicting opinions distracting the presentation for longer.
- Have a time limit in place. If you've been trying to fix the problem for longer than 5 minutes, your audience will lose interest. You want to keep the same excitement they had when they first arrived to your presentation. People who stick to time frames instill confidence in their audience. Since time is something can we all measure, by exemplar you'll look proficient in all areas.
- Move into the presentation without the technology (and don't refer to the technological blight again). You might have worked 48 hours straight on those slides, but your audience doesn't know that, and won't care as long as you still give them "something".
In my next post, I'll give you a 3-step method to ensure technology doesn't fail you.
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