48hrs to Presentation

I’m packing my stuff and electronics and getting ready to go present on the topic of Blogs & Wikis to a conference in less than 48hrs. I’m not the stressed kind of person usually, as I’ve been presenting to small and large audiences in IBM (and elsewhere) ever since I was in university. I actually enjoy the attention and the microphone.

But this time around, I’ve litterally been a ball of stress (so my family/friends say). The reason is simple: I’ve decided to get out of my comfort zone and create an experience, as opposed to a presentation. Ok, it’s not earth-shattering, but I told myself my one objective this time around was to surprise my audience.

To that effect, I’ve got music and vizualizations going on the big screen, lowering the lights, and then instead of jumping to slides… I’m going to tell a story. Never done it. But since I love stories so much myself, and always felt they were a great way to captivate an audience, I’ve crafted from my own family life something that serves to explain the points I want to get across.

Also, I’ve changed my slides significantly. Nor more busy charts. Each slides consists of less than 4 words. Or an image. And no cliparts. No bullet points. Yes, I’ve been heavily influenced by Presentation Zen and all the observations about what works and what doesn’t.

Of course, I have to do demos, but they are interactive, and I just might use someone from the audience as well, like when the magician calls for an assistant 😉

In the end, we’ve also got a funny bit which will be presented by a IBM colleague, with sound effects and all. I can’t say more as I know some read this blog. I hope this is enough to convince you that you do NOT want to miss this pitch!