I’m in Orlando this week acting like a technician. The company I work for supports several hundred Microsoft events such as tradeshows, conferences and product launches. Once a year Microsoft brings their sales force together to discuss new products and ways to sell these products. The conference is closed to the public except for a few partners who are invited as guest speakers.
I’ve spent the last couple of days helping the speakers get their demos and slides working. Most of of the time, the process goes off without a hitch. The computer works. The audio and video work. The speaker is prepared.
But it doesn’t take much for a presentation to go sideways. Some demos require more than one computer or multiple “virtual machines” to work properly. It’s not uncommon for a speaker to bring in several laptops and switch between each machine several times during the presentation.
With so much focus on the demo, sometimes the message gets lost. The best presentation I’ve seen so far was given by a 14 year old boy from London. He had maybe 4 or 5 slides and one short demo he created himself. He explained how he uses Microsoft OneNote at school to take notes, study, and organize his courses. It was simple. It was precise. He was prepared.
It was a good example that some of the best presentations are simple. A cool demo might wow the crowd, but I was a lot more willing to give OneNote a try after hearing how this kid actually uses it each day.
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