The focus of this blog is on designing presentations, not on delivering them. In general I find that poor presentation design can cripple even the best delivery, while on the contrary, excellent design can survive poor delivery. That said, the ideal presentation has of course both excellent design and excellent delivery.
Mr. Murphy is alive and well and his law is one of the biggest threats to excellent presentation delivery. In all the presentations I give and workshops I run, it is rare day where everything runs smoothly. The batteries on the wireless mike are dead, and there are no spares available; the AV jack to my laptop is not in fact connected to the projector; the podium is right in front of the screen, with cables well taped to the ground so we cannot move it easily. Etc., etc. A bit of extra advance preparation can avoid many of these things.
This is why I was delighted to find out that Lee Potts, presentation guru and co-founder of a blog I followed closely in its heyday, Visual Being, has started a new blog on exactly this topic, called Breaking Murphy’s Law. I look forward to following it and learning more from Lee.