A short live-stream segment by TJ Walker advising presenters to test and rehearse their PowerPoint presentations using the actual venue equipment (laptop, projector, remotes) before presenting. Emphasizes compatibility, lighting/projection differences, and personal responsibility for bringing and testing one’s own tools.
Chapters
You're going to the big conference, you're excited. You've been working on your PowerPoint presentation for months. You've slaved over it. It is beautiful. You've even rehearsed back in the home office. You've arrived at the conference and you are ready. Wait a minute, are you ready? Because you may have looked at everything on your laptop, your projector back home, your own remote control back home. But what about the conference? What about the venue? Or what about the client's office? You are never ready to give a PowerPoint presentation unless you've used all the tools, all the equipment that you'll be using for the actual presentation. Because every laptop can be a little bit different. The keyboard can be laid out differently. You've got. And also, if you're using any video or animation, just going from a memory stick that you have might not work on the laptop you're putting it into, and it might not have the right version of the software you're using. So you've got to test your laptop, you've got to make sure the projector works. You may be working on an extremely high quality, expensive projector in your home office, but you then get to a conference or a convention or a client's office, and the lighting is much weaker, the quality of the projector is much worse. The lights coming in have distorted things. You've got to see how it actually looks in that venue or you're not ready. Finally, you've got to think about every other little detail. Are you using a remote control? If you want to use a remote control, bring your own. Never, ever, ever assume the venue is going to provide a remote control. They might. They probably will. But here's the thing. Nobody really cares about you when you're giving a speech. Certainly nobody has as much of an interest in you doing well as you. So if you want a clicker, if you want a remote control, bring your own, test it. If you can, use your own laptop. And it's not always possible with some conferences because they have speaker after speaker, there's no time to transition. But if you can use it, make sure your computer actually works with the projector. If everyone else is using an Apple computer and you're using Windows, you've got to deal with compatibility issues. So get to the venue, practice on the actual machinery, the technology you're going to use. Then, and only then will you truly be ready.
