When technology hates you
These are the words that no presenter wants to utter in front of a packed house. Last week I had to do that very thing when I gave a "Social Media 101" presentation to the DFWIMA. This was to be the first presentation since making the full-time switch to a Mac, and honestly I was looking forward to it. I had played all afternoon with Keynote, the brilliant Powerpoint replacement from Apple. Two great features – the ability to see a running timer as well as the next slide on your computer screen while the projector output shows the actual presentation.
Alas, I was never able to use it. Unfortunately, my MacBook Pro had an apparently common problem – it refused to wake up from sleeping. "Why not just power it off and restart it?", you may be asking. Good question, especially considering the Mac restarts in a matter of seconds. Well, I was a bit thrown off by the handheld mic that refused to stop giving angry feedback no matter where in the room I stood.
Despite feeling like an ill-prepared jackass, I pulled it together and did a decent job of staying on point, sans-presentation (and sans-notes, since I forgot to print those out like I normally do). The worst part was that Mike Murphy from Facebook spoke after me and was a fantastic speaker. He had videos, a great presentation he’d given several times, and a easy manner about him. Yeah, felt like a jackass.
Afterwards, several people complimented me on the recovery. It made me realize that this is a fairly common problem, and I now feel fortunate that this is the first time this has happened to me.
And just in case you don’t believe there was a presentation, here’s a photo I took before putting the computer to sleep…
