Presenters Who Play In The Gray Risk Their Reputations

We all bend the rules and shade the truth in various ways. Presenters do it for all sorts of reasons: to inflate the importance of their work, to get people to like them, to make a story funnier. Tad Simons suggests there's a line in there somewhere that may not be wise to cross.

Simons, Tad. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Ethics

Why Can't All Our Tools Be This Easy To Use?

Two years ago, a rather disconcerting thing happened to Mike Dunn, president and CEO of PolyVision, one of the world's leading manufacturers of electronic whiteboards. From his office Dunn could see into the meeting room across the hall, where one of the company's large-format whiteboards was mounted on the wall. What Dunn observed (or didn't) was that even though meetings were going on all the time, the whiteboard itself hardly ever got used. When he asked his staff why, they responded a bit sheepishly that the whiteboard was too much of a hassle to set up. Nobody wanted to go through the bother of up hooking their computer to it, and to use the board's interactive features, they'd have to bring in a projector as well. It wasn't worth the trouble, they confessed. This is not the sort of feedback the president of a company that makes electronic whiteboards likes to hear. In response, Dunn dedicated a computer to the whiteboard and installed a permanent projector in the room. Then he himself tried to give a presentation using this same equipment, the benefits of which his sales force was busily touting in the field. After 20 minutes of futzing he gave up – and had an epiphany instead. 'I thought, if the president of the company can't get his own products to work, what chance does the average person on the street have of getting them to work?' recalls Dunn. His conclusion: Almost no chance at all.

Simons, Tad. Presentations (2003). Articles>Usability>Software

Your Success Depends On the Invisible Work of Thousands

The next time you give a presentation and everything in the room works the way it is supposed to, there are thousands of people you should thank before patting yourself on the back for a job well done. Because if your presentation goes off without a hitch, it means that the people who designed the room, built it, integrated it, furnished it, lit it, developed the technology for it – not to mention the folks who manufactured and distributed the light switches, bulbs, wiring cables, marker pens, paper clips, coffee, cookies and everything else that goes into a successful presentation – all did their jobs, so you could do yours.

Simons, Tad. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations