I had a dry run today for an upcoming presentation that did not go quite as well as I would like, though I completely expected this as I was unprepared. The good news is, it was a dry run and not the real thing, so I have plenty of time to adjust.
Even so, there’s one thing I did wrong, that I should have known better than to do. In my crazy sleep deprived work frazzled mind, I broke the cardinal rule of a dry run – Treat it like the real thing!
Kitty Hawk by gilderm from sxc.huFor example, I have a little pre-flight checklist for every talk I give. I just place it in a file named preflight.txt in the root of each presentation folder and adapt it for each presentation. Even though I try to adapt it to each presentation, there is a core set of items that never really changes from one presentation to another. These are items that almost always apply and many are tips learned from other great presenters such as Scott Hanselman and Brad Wilson.
I thought this might be useful for others who find themselves in a position where they are giving presentations. Perhaps some of you will add to my checklist. I divided it into several categories. The last section isn’t actually a check-list, but a reminder of important keyboard shortcuts.
System
- Set Notepad default font size to 16
- Hide Desktop Icons
- Close unnecessary toolbar/tray icons
- Close all unecessary windows including Solution Explorer (use CTRL ALT L to show it)
Visual Studio
- Launch Visual Studio
- Set font size to 16
- Drag necessary files into desktop
- Start and minimize magnifier
- Prepare snippets (if you use them)
- Disable all unnecessary VS extensions
- Or better yet, set up a DEMO instance of Visual Studio (thanks Mike Minutillo!)
General
- Reset all demos. That might mean clearing cookies, clearing browser forms saved data, etc.
- Open the PowerPoint deck to the right spot
- Consolidate your demo scripts into a single document per talk
- Print out notes (and don’t accidentally throw them away like I did)
- Relax
Important Keyboard shortcuts
- Window + to zoom in one level (and start magnifier)
- Windows - to zoom out one level
- Windows ESC to zoom fully out
- CTRL . smart tag expansion
- CTRL , Navigate to
- SHIFT ALT K to display Solution Explorer (I remapped this on Brad's advice because CTRL ALT L conflicts with Windows magnifier)
- CTRL + and CTRL - change font size in NotePad2
I think this checklist nicely complements my presentation tips I learned from my (many) mistakes blog post. Did I forget an obvious preflight option? Do tell!