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Presentation Tips

Vijay Anand (the force behind Proto) posted this note from a Demo Conference Veteran to help people have the maximum impact during their product presentations ( You can get the original posting from here).

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Shel Israel
Date: Jan 14, 2007 9:43 PM
Subject: RE: Proto.in Presentation Tips
To: Vijay Anand

1. Be humble but proud. Remember the star of your presentation is the product not you. Your audience wants to see the technology. Spend as much time showing it as possible.

2. It is far more memorable to make one point very well, then to make several points.

3. The objective of a good presentation is to get the people who matter most in the audience to want to come up to you after your talk and say, “tell me more.”

4. Remember to always play nice. Your worst competitor in today’s conference is tomorrow’s business partner, employer or employee.

5. Speaking without hype, in a style that is authentic and in the tones you would use when meeting a new business partner.

6. If there are potential investors in the audience ignore them. They are going to follow the buzz you make with the technologists in the audience. Focus on the technologists.

7. If you are a star of the conference, remember that you just did well at one event and on one day. If you do poorly remember that you just had a bad day and the world has not collapsed. In either case, you will have learned a very valuable lesson to take with you moving forward.

8. You, your product and your company are being judged at every minute during the conference, not just when you are speaking from the dais. The conversations and networking are the most important part of any business networking event.

9. Do not exaggerate what your product can do. Do not be overly optimistic about when it will be ready.

10. Make it clear that you want as many partners as you can get.

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Add comment January 14th, 2007

CBS’s Control Failure: Janet Jackson’s Wardrobe Malfunction

It’s that time of the year again. Superbowl is a few weeks away. The playoffs are well underway, people are arguing about the Patriots, Chargers, Colts … winning it all. GoDaddy’s co-founder has been talking about how his ads were rejected by the ABC censorship committee. People almost expect something dramatic after the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction shocked the country in 2004. That it was broadcasted to millions of homes in the US was a big “control” failure.

One of the important things about controls is whether they are pro-active and reactive. Reactive is do something after it happens: like MTV & CBS apologized for Janet’s failure.  Pro-active is what is done before … a system which would have not aired the snafu.  The Janet Jackson’s control failure highlights that in some cases having reactive controls is just not good enough. The damage has been done.

Yet if we look at the IT world most of the process inside organizations to control change are reactive. They do-stuff after the change has happened not before it. They are waiting for a Janet Jackson control failure?

Should you control change pro-actively on some of your infrastructure?

Add comment January 14th, 2007