The Beauty and Problems of New Presentations

October 2, 2008 · Comments

I’m watching myself present at the Inbound Marketing Summit from a few weeks back in Boston. This was a brand new presentation called “From Cowpaths to Mastodons,” and what I’m loving about it is that I made the presentation kind of out of nowhere and gave it instead of the original planned speech. I love that I can work on the fly.

What I dislike about this is that it’s my first go at it. I see EVERY flaw I made in my performance while watching the video. Here, you watch for a bit.

It’s technically okay that I’m all over the place, and that I’m staring at my slides a lot, and that my delivery isn’t crisp… YET.

What comes next is working on the presentation, deciding what parts make sense, removing parts that don’t, etc. What’s interesting is seeing some of the new things I tried (there were three new things), and deciding if I liked them or not.

I had a little alternate reality game going on (I guess you could call it that) where I asked a few “agents” in the room to say “Hey!” if I put my hands up and “Yes!” if I pumped my fist. It was for a test of something, and was interesting. It dealt with repetition, but also dealt with making a point about being first to the presentation.

It’s interesting to think about this, to watch myself, to be critical. The presentations I give businesses are a bit different, a bit more focused, but what I’m learning at conferences I’m applying to my business work.

Are you working on your presentations? Your daily life ones? Your blog ones? Are you learning how to move audiences, and how to bring points across in different ways?

What do you see in your own work? What do you see in mine?

Want to see me present again? I was given another handful of 50% off codes for New Marketing Summit in a few weeks in Massachusetts. Just email me: cbrogan at crosstechmedia.com , and if I’ve not run out, I’ll share these last few. Oh, and you can see about another 30 people speak there, too.

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  • Okay, now that I've started, I have to watch the whole thing... but it will have to be later. "Not right now honey, I know it's bedtime, but I'm listening to Chris talk about cows," doesn't cut it with the 5 year old.

    That said, the Boston cowpath myth reminds me very much of one about 'organic campus sidewalk design' that I heard back in the 80's... about a college that was redeveloped by an architect who put no paths or sod in for the first term of a redesign - but instead waited until the students had trod paths, then put the sidewalks there and the grass around it. The theory being that students are lazy and will always walk the shortest path from building to building - whether or not there is a sidewalk there - so it's best to wait to pave & sod rather than to have to deal with dead grass and unused sidewalks.

    This will be in the back of my mind as I watch the rest of the presentation to see where it goes! :)
  • Hey Chris.

    I'm in over ten minutes, and here's what I say:

    If you never told me that this was your first time, I would never know (that is a great thing).

    We tend to see everything we didn't do or should not do and fail to realize that no one else knows (so, your audience doesn't know where you slipped, lost your thought or did something that you think is awkward - also a great thing).

    I know I didn't see anything like that stood out(a great thing).

    From a structure stand-point you might consider adding an agenda (even a vague one) at the beginning. Something simple. I tend to do say something like, "before we get into this, I am going to show you three things..." - nothing complex. This way you can build it around your three points and even wrap-up on it.

    This gives you the flexbility to wander but still bring it all full-circle. It also enables you - while building your presentation - to ask yourself if your idea fits and flows into one of your three sections.

    Really enjoying this, so thanks for posting it :)
  • As Mitch said, if you hadn't mentioned it, I would never have guessed it was totally off the cuff. Very cool to be improvising with ideas. Most of us are our own worst critics anyways, "you done well". ;-)
  • enjoyed it mate - your stuff on home base, outposts and passports is great. You got that written up anywhere?
  • actually - found a little more.

    Question - how do you differentiate outposts and passports?
  • I just finished watching "From Cowpaths to Mastodons" within Google Reader [yay for embedded video support] (RSS subscribed to your blog, possibly via Brian Solis' PR 2.0, if I'm remembering this correctly)

    "Hotels without toilets" and "blitter" killed your audience ;-)

    Jokes aside, it was a very interesting presentation [I'm currently a Grad Student in New Media Studies, wonder if that has anything to do with me thinking that about your presentation] so thanks for sharing and again, much respect for putting this "out there"... (or, here, as the case may be)
  • @Darren - I wrote about using outposts a few days ago, actually, and their purpose is techically a place to guide people to your main content. So Facebook, Linkedin, and several other smaller social networks are my outposts.

    PASSPORTS are just what I call the accounts we need to survive on the web: StumbleUpon, WordPress, Disqus, Digg, Gmail, Yahoo (for Upcoming and Flickr and Delicious) and more. Essentially, those accounts that let us weigh in everywhere. Make sense?
  • @Mitch and @Marti - thanks. Of course I'm much more critical for knowing what I didn't do and where I stumbled. But thanks so very much.

    Mitch, you're right about even a crazy agenda. That would've set my passengers' minds at ease.
  • I think we are always more critical of ourselves than we are of others. I liked your analogies because I think when most people see and think about social media the landscape seems too broad and scary. Breaking it down to fun and related analogies makes the world look more easy to navigate.
  • @Nikola - I'm grateful for your thoughts. What's funny is how the audio didn't pick up all the other laughter. I had them giggling MOST of the presentation. But without that laugh track, it looks like I'm a weirdo. Well, I *am* a weirdo, but you know what I mean.
  • Hey Chris, do you think you could put the video on another video sharing site? Blip.tv performs horribly down here in Australasia (has doneso consistently for last 6 months) so takes hours to load the video. If you could put it on vimeo or viddler would be great :) (then we can load it in mins)
  • "It's not just the content, but the whole framework of what we are doing..."

    I found the presentation to be informative, entertaining and engaging.

    You also have the benefit of the doubt because of your authentic personality, yet also have a "big name".

    I can acknowledge striving to up your game, but you are already ahead of the game.

    I conducted a presentation last Monday and stretched myself to the point of feeling vulnerable afterward. It is so human to want re-affirmation for doing what one loves.

    You go boy!
  • I can't believe I ate the whole thing. But I did and I enjoyed it. It was great seeing you in action, Chris.
  • Very cool. I remember not too long ago, watching your videos that were the brainstorm for this presentation. It was very early in the morning and fun to watch you try to get the points out. I must say that this presentation was much more coherent and it was fun for me to see it all come together.

    I also think that this presentation is one of the best with regard to how all of this "new media" hub bub can make a meaningful difference in business and in relationships. The game has truly changed!

    It was great meeting you for a short time at Blog World in Vegas. I hope to see you at another meeting! Thanks for the great content.
  • "Hello computer..."
    You killed me :)
  • and if I may add something else, i just left a comment towards the end of the video, and when i pressed submit, the page refreshed...
    I think it would be a good idea to add an Ajax comments add on to your wordpress.

    :)
  • carol
    I subscribed to your blog thru google reader a while ago. Linked from some other blog I don't remember who. I've been unsubscribing to the blogs I'm not reading regularly even if I think it might have some value because I find I can't read everything I want to anymore. I was going thru your some 42 postings that had accumulated and came across the video. Started watching, thought "I don't have time for this", kept watching (I was playing Sudoku on Brain Age on my kid's Nintendo DS simultaneously, that's the only way I could sit still for that long) and now I think I love you. You grew on me. Which I think is great. Loved your ideas, found you inspiring. I won't be unsubscribing anytime soon. Thanks.
  • Chris

    Couldn't agree more with you re: how to create a presentation. You have to deliver it, hear it, see it and then begin to refine it. I always tell folks to practice 10 times before they deliver a presentation. They usually laugh. But your video and post explain why you really need to do a live run-throug (even if it is in front of a mirror versus and audience) to work out the kinks and flow.

    Thanks for sharing. Good stuff.
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