cubicle17

Rands is Right

An interesting thing happened yesterday. But before I tell you about that, I want you to read this: it’s a quote from Rands’ recent article about preparing for presentations:

My best piece of advice is a threat: an audience can smell an immature presentation on the very first slide. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content; it’s you standing lamely in front of your slide and silently conveying the “Ok, what I am going to talk about here?” vibe, and it’s presentation death.

The group with whom I work is in the middle of a presentation series, and the first presentation, given by a senior architect, was awful. It was apparent from the second he opened his mouth that he hadn’t so much as thought about what he was going to say. He spent the next hour stumbling over his words, repeating himself, rambling, and otherwise wasting my time.

Why am I telling you this? Because the second presentation in the series, to be given by one of our senior consultants (his name is John), was canceled. Now that’s not something you see everyday. It was canceled because John wasn’t give time to fully prepare. As I walked into the presentation room, I witnessed the organizer trying to convince John to go ahead with his presentation, despite being unfinished. A push to give an unfinished presentation happens more than you’d think in the business world, and it was refreshing to see someone push back for the right reasons.

After reading Rands’ article and thinking about the dichotomy of these two presentations, I wanted to underscore one of Rands’ main points: a presentation that isn’t well prepared is palpable. And it doesn’t just reflect poorly on the presenter; it actually sends a clear message to the audience that their time is being wasted.

So, John, thank you for not wasting my time. I appreciate it more than you may realize.