tellingpeople

Mostly, presentations are about something specific and to a specific audience. Mostly they want you to do well. Mostly they’ll forgive you a glitch here and there.

Mostly.

But not if you get something significant wrong. Something important to your audience as people. Things you really (and I mean really) need to get right are things like who the group is you’re speaking to, where they are and so on… Geographers have a term for loving places; it’s topophilia… and topophilia tends to be particularly strong in relation to the place you come from.

Get it wrong and you’re in trouble (unless you can joke your way out of it like a pro.

Even the great Guy Kawasaki can get it wrong. Imagine dropping a clanger like that live in a presentation! You’d have a hard job recovering.

It’s worth just doing a quick check, before you go on – particularly if you’re doing a presentation you’ve done before. Business or sales presentations would be prime examples of this. Personally, I’d suggest that if you’re using notes for your presentation your first paragraph should be the basics…. name, date, place, title! I know it seems patronizing but believe me, in the heat of the nervous moment you might be grateful that you covered the basics!

Believe me, this is the voice of bitter, bitter experience!

Get those wrong and you’re in more trouble than if you got your wife’s name wrong…. allegedly!