Presentation coaching that will help you win awards or raise capital!

If you are presenting on the stage at DEMO, you have probably realized that it’s a one shot deal. Once Matt Marshall introduces you and the music and applause subsides, the clock starts at 6 minutes and the cameras are filming. There is no stopping or retakes. It is literally a one shot deal.

In order to make sure that you are prepared for anything and everything on stage, it is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally important that you have a back up plan, in case something doesn’t go according to plan. If you don’t have a back up plan, it can be a very stressful and disappointing 6 minutes for you, your company and the audience. I have seen people back stage in tears because the demo went the wrong way and failed. And, it’s usually because they didn’t have a back up plan.

There are many things you can do to prepare for the unexpected. One way, if you have a laptop involved in the demo, is to take screen captures of all of the screens you’ll need to show using something like SnagIt. It not only allows you to capture the entire scrolling screen, it actually will capture some of the functions too, such as basic HTML. This way, your back up screens will have some basic functionality to show such as drop down lists and Alt Text. You can put all of the files on a USB drive and have instant access to them, if something goes wrong with your product.

Finally, having a back up plan is not enough. You need to practice the back up plan too! If you make time to practice the back up plan, you’ll be more likely to succeed on stage, if you need to resort to it. One of the best things to do is during each practice session, run the back up once. The more comfortable you are with it, the easier it will be to handle a mishap on stage. And, if you are paranoid like me, you’ll have 2-3 back up plans, depending on what you are doing.

For most of you, the experience on stage at DEMOfall 2010 will be new. One of the most important things to know is that when you are on stage, there will be two large timers positioned on top of the monitors located just in front of the stage. Not only will you be able to see what is on the big screens without looking over your shoulder, you’ll see the countdown timers too. The count usually begins after the music dies down and it starts at 6:00 and counts down from there to 0:00.

While you are rehearsing your demo for DEMOfall 2010, you might find it easy to use an on-line countdown timer. You can use a free one here: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/

I always recommend that your practice sessions have about 30 seconds remaining on the clock. The reason for this is if anything goes wrong or anything takes a little extra time on stage under the bright lights, you’ll need those 30 seconds to recover. You do not want to run over on your time if you want to be considered for an award. And, there have been times in the past when the mic is shut off and the music is turned up because the demo has run way over. Please don’t let this happen to you.

I look forward to seeing you at DEMO in a few weeks.

If you are the one doing the speaking on stage at DEMOfall 2010, you know you need the practice. In fact, if you are really serious about doing well on stage, you’ll be practicing the script dozens of times this week and next. It’s like preparing for a marathon. You need to run many marathons before the actual marathon. DEMO is like a marathon. The only problem is sometimes it is hard to get the person who will be running the demo to be there while you practice. They might be the ones actually programming the product for DEMO and have little time to devote to practicing.

So, here’s my best tip of the day for the presenters: Get someone in your organization to record the screens that will be used at DEMO using a product like Camtasia. It’s very simple to use it and it’s even free for 30 days! You can learn how to use it in 5 minutes. You can quickly record all of the demo screens and edit out the pauses and screens that won’t be used. Finally, Camtasia lets you instantly produce a movie or video of the screens that you can use to practice with. All you need to do is press Play and rehearse the script. You will get a much better sense for timing this way and you’ll know where the clock should be at every turn of your script.