5 Simple Tips for Technical Success when giving a Keynote Presentation

I have facilitated hundreds of conferences and witnessed many excellent presentations on a range of topics. Frequently, the speakers are experts in their field and have useful, interesting and compelling information to convey. It is now common for PowerPoint presentations to include sound files and video clips. Incorporating multi media can add a great deal of interest and variety however it can result in a range of problems occurring.

To ensure your presentation goes smoothly, please consider the following five tips:

1.   If saving your PowerPoint presentation to a memory stick, you must export the presentation as a package so all the embedded sound files are included on the memory stick. Failure to do this will mean that the sound files can not be located and will not play.

2.   Video files should be in a common format such as Quicktime or a Windows Media file. Incorporating a video file that has been saved in an unconventional format may result in the file not playing.

3.   Providing a web link on a PowerPoint presentation to a YouTube video file is risky. It relies on the internet connection of the conference room to be stable and fast. The quality of the video file may also appear pixelated depending on the resolution of the video. Presenting to a room whilst waiting for a video to buffer can be cringeworthy. It is better to save the video file onto your computer or memory stick so an internet connection is not required. The video will play at the correct speed and it can be saved at a higher resolution.

4.   Turning up with a memory stick as you are about to give your presentation does not allow any opportunity to screen or test the presentation. Everything may work correctly, but if it does not then there is no time to make any corrections.

5.   Do not boot up your computer in safe mode if you are connecting to a data projector or an external monitor. The drivers required to display the presentation to an external monitor are disabled. Whilst the presenter can see their presentation on their laptop, the presentation will not display to everyone else.

Keep these tips in mind and you are well on your way to giving a professional and slick presentation. Good luck.

By Daniel Cohen

The Perfect Storm of a Trivia Disaster

When you buy a hard wired electrical appliance, it comes with a warning "To be installed by a licensed professional only". This is good advice. Even though, it may appear easy to do it yourself, the danger of a disaster is too high.

When you buy or hire a microphone, it should also come with a warning "To be used by a trained professional". Just because you have been to a few trivia nights does not mean that you can run one yourself. Last night, I experienced first hand what can occur when three powerful elements combine to produce the perfect storm of a trivia disaster.

Element One - The Sound

The sound is important. It is crucial that  you have the right equipment and know how to set it up correctly so that everyone can hear clearly what is going on. The sound system needs to have enough power to amplify the voice of the host and the audio from the trivia sources. People become disengaged very quickly when they can't understand the instructions or they are unable to hear the famous quote or lyric.

Element Two -  The Trivia

Most people seem to enjoy trivia and surprising their friends and themselves with the obscure and unlikely facts that are contained within their brains. But, people don't want to think and they don't want to look stupid. So the trivia must have some options such as true or false or multiple choice. Nothing seems to disengage people quicker than trivia that is too difficult, obscure or boring. Trivia rounds should have a degree of difficulty that is easy to moderate so that teams achieve success and want to continue playing. When preparing a trivia round you would hope that teams could achieve a score of around 75% correct answers. Last night our team won a trivia round with a score of 4 out of 20.

Element Three - The Host

The job of the host is to make the evening flow by welcoming the guests, introducing the teams, explaining the rules and asking the questions. It should be done in a clear and brief manner. Professional hosts seem to understand that their role is important but the night is not about them. They avoid waffle and keep things moving. Last night the host became frustrated when people were not listening (because of the poor quality sound), the people were not paying attention (because they were disengaged from the trivia) and they were talking whilst the host was talking (because the host was waffling). The Perfect Storm of a Trivia disaster occurred.

The Warning Signs

1. Guests repeatedly saying that they can't hear or understand the instructions. (alarm bells should be ringing).

2. Teams getting very low scores on the trivia rounds (time to locate the life jackets).

3. When guests approach the host and say "enough trivia, we just want to dance". At this point, it is time to man the life boats and leave the sinking ship (play dance music and end the trivia). 

Alternatively, hire a company to host your event. You will be glad you did...and so will all the guests.

By Daniel Cohen