Recovering from potential presentation disasters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of things which can go wrong during presentations. How you handle them, with a planned alternative, can avoid a potential disaster.

 

For example, as shown above, instead of displaying your PowerPoint slides on a screen or monitor there might be a black screen. You might try to fix the problem by yourself. But it is smarter to ask others for help. They may more quickly catch what you might have missed.

 

Consider a simple setup, where a laptop is connected directly to a projector. One possibility is that you didn’t connect the output from the laptop to the input for the projector. Back on February 18, 2011 I blogged about that in a post titled More on mistake-proofing: lock out what you don’t want to happen. My vintage projector has two VGA connectors for input and output. Once I didn’t hook the output from the laptop to the input for the projector. My laptop also has a function key (F6) for displaying either only via its LCD display, only via the HDMI output jack, or both. I have an HDMI to VGA adapter cable for connecting to the projector. If you instead wanted to connect an Apple Mac laptop to my projector, then you would need a different adapter cable. With a newer projector, you instead could try connecting via wifi. For a hybrid meeting, you might display slides by sharing your laptop PowerPoint screen with Zoom software.  

 

While you or they are fixing the problem, you could engage with the audience. An article by Simon Hall at Cambridge Network on April 23, 2023 titled Handling the ultimate public speaking horror suggested you ask:

 

“What do you hope to get from this talk? What are the key points you’d like to be addressed?”

 

Also, you can give your introduction without slides (perhaps using a flip chart). If you have a hard copy of your slides and have rehearsed this alternative, then it would go smoothly. On March 11, 2009 I blogged about having a slide projector bulb burn out during a presentation in a ballroom at CORROSION/82 in Houston in a post titled Plan for problems: a ‘bumpy road’ speaking experience. I had never rehearsed that alternative, so I had to wait silently in the dark for the projectionist to put in a new bulb.

 

What about a power failure in the building? On March 10, 2012 I blogged about How an engineer kept a power failure from derailing a keynote speech. In that case he was able to provide an alternative - using the battery and inverter on his pickup truck to supply power for the projector.

 

Even more serious was a power failure over an entire university campus. On December 3, 2009 I blogged about Into the dark – and back into the light. In that case the only solution was to reschedule the presentation an hour later, at another venue a half-mile away.

 

On November 6, 2019 I blogged about Excellent advice on how to deal with a distraction or an emergency during your speech, and referred to articles in both Toastmaster and Speaker magazines.

 

My cartoon was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.