Point, Click & Wow! -- Chapter 3: Prepare for Technology Success

	Point, Click & Wow! -- Chapter 3: Prepare for Technology Success Page 2 of 10 Preparing Days Ahead The key for those who are unstressed about giving a laptop presentation is the motto they live by: "Plan for bad luck!" Here's a list of things to do before your talk. Buy the Best Laptop You Can Afford. This seems self-evident, but people often discover that their laptop, purchased at a very good price, doesn't show clearly and quickly all the video and graphics they wish to present. Also, bring your own laptop. You may be told that there's a laptop you can use, but it may or may not be adequate for your needs. A presenter shared: "One time I showed up very early to prepare only to wait and wait for someone to find a laptop for me to use. And then it really didn't work that well." Be Sure You Have a Port to Connect the LCD Projector Cable. Some of the newer laptops don't have built-in ports for the cable connection. Get one for your laptop and put it somewhere so you don't forget it. A visual media department manager said, "Presenters come in with their new slim, trim laptops, but they don't have an adapter they need in order to connect the cable to the laptop. We don't keep those. They are out of luck that day." Buy a Wireless Microphone. Some people spend their lives presenting in big conference centers and hotels. Since audio is a very large part of a presentation, it may be worth the money and your reputation to carry your own system. Have Several Backups. First, why do you need backups? Here are some things that could go wrong: You forget the power cord. The electricity goes out. There is no electrical outlet or the outlet is not good. Your computer or the LCD projector breaks. Your hard drive crashes. You corrupt the presentation while trying to "tweak" it on a low battery. You drop your laptop on the way to catching a plane. You spill something on it. Someone steals it. Practice for the worst scenario. For those crucial presentations do this: In your rehearsal start presenting, then pretend that you can no longer use the laptop. Give the speech using your backup plan. If your backup plan is another set of equipment, that's fine, but practice continuing to speak without the slides while the second system is being set up. Better yet, pretend both systems crashed. Then decide what you will do. [an error occurred while processing this directive] If your job depends on it, you need a reliable, quick backup plan that lets you have no more than a five-minute delay between something not working and your continuing on with the speech. And during that transition someone else should implement your backup plan so you can keep speaking. You'll need a partner who can do that for you. Here are some backup plans. Pick several that will work for you. Copy the presentation to a CD, disk, or flash card. Carrying it on a Zip disk may not be the best idea, as many people's laptops cannot use a Zip disk. Make sure the video and other files are saved in your presentation file. For example, if you create your presentation with video then save it to the laptop, you need to have the video files. PowerPoint serves as a stage and just points to the location of the video file. If the file isn't there, novideo. If you burn the presentation to a CD, be sure you copy the video file. Check to be sure that you don't have to change the pointer to thefile. An easy way to solve this problem is to always put sound and video files in the same folder as your presentation. Then when you move the folder, you move everything at once. Do a rehearsal with the CD backup, just in case you have to use it. Many presenters have opened a backup only to see the dreaded red X's through many of their slides. If you have special fonts, including bullets, put them on your laptop as well -- and on the laptops of any of those people who are keeping your file in case you need it. When using special fonts, keep copies of the font files used. You may need to give them to someone else. Also, your links may break when transferred to another machine. You might need to re-establish them. Check your backup files. Every video driver is a bit different and you may have some unexpected problems, mostly with the transition effects. Check your effects to be sure they look presentable. Bring a set of transparencies or set of 35 mm film slides. Store the file on a network that you can access. Some people suggest that you have someone back in the office keep a copy of the presentation. The idea is that you can call at a moment's notice and have it sent via email. There are two major problems. No one answers the phone anymore. You can call, but that doesn't mean anyone will be there. Second, the file size may be too big to download through the available network. Roger Parker suggests "making an Adobe Acrobat copy of your presentation and FTP'ing it to your website as an unlinked file. Then, if your laptop disappears or breaks, all you have to do is borrow a laptop (most have FTP and Adobe Acrobat Reader) and download the Acrobat file. You're back in business." (To read his article, go to www.newentrepreneur.com/ premium/open/open.html. Once there scroll down until you see the article titled "Presenting with Adobe Acrobat 4.0.") Always have paper copies of the slides. This is a must! You need to have some notes to speak from if all else fails. We have heard and read about too many people who ended up giving a speech without any notes at all. Don't set yourself up for this kind of experience. A fellow presenter said, "Sometimes I design my handouts so I can do my presentation directly from them if all electronic media options fail." Send the presentation to those in your office who are going to present with you. When you are presenting with other colleagues, odds are one of your laptops will work. Send the presentation to someone in the audience. That way you can use their system if yours doesn't work. Put it on "Flash" cards. They can provide an easy way to move files from one machine to another when on the road. You can use a CompactFlash card, which is like a mini-hard drive for your laptop. It fits into your PCMCIA (PC CARD) modem slot (using an adapter). The cards come in 8Meg, 16Meg, 32Meg, and 64Meg sizes. They are the same CompactFlash cards used for digital cameras. As long as your presentation isn't too big for the card (in terms of file size), then it works great. The best news is that it works on almost any laptop. Bring two sets of equipment if this is a very important presentation, but also bring some type of non-electric backup. Here are two stories we received about electrical issues: "We brought two of everything—two laptops and two projectors. What we didn't plan on is that the electric sockets in the room would be unusable." "I happened to have the only electrical socket in the whole San Francisco Moscone Conference Center that didn't work." Never, never present using the Player. This is the file that you send to someone who doesn't have PowerPoint on their computer. The players are all missing certain features. Find the name of the local audiovisual vendor in case you have to buy a cable or connector. (You can see dealer directories on these websites: www.kayye.com under AV Directory and www.avavenue.com.) When you are using the equipment in a hotel, be sure to ask if the AV person will be there to make sure everything is working. Some hotels just have equipment dropped off in the room and it's up to you to put it all together. 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