Howto: Prepare a Presentation

Posted on July 4th, 2007 by Paul Stovell

I would like to say that people often ask me for advice on how to prepare to deliver a presentation. The truth is, however, that no one has ever asked me, and there may just be a reason for that. Nevertheless, here is Paul’s Painless Process for Preparing a Presentation (TM):

  1. One month away: Blog about it, generate as much hype as possible, invite everyone I know to the talk.
  2. Three weeks away: Promise myself to start preparing soon.
  3. Two weeks away: Promise myself that I’ll get to it this weekend, as it’s the last weekend I will have before the presentation.
  4. Weekend before the presentation: Convince myself that the talk is still days away, and I can prepare it on weeknights.
  5. Two days before the presentation: Convince myself that it can wait until tomorrow night.
  6. Night before the presentation: Stay up until at least 3AM the next morning preparing. Promise myself to start preparing sooner next time!

Someday I’ll learn my lesson :)

Filed under: Funny

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11 Responses to “Howto: Prepare a Presentation”

  1. Debbie Timmins, on July 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm Said:

    That is funny! Also so true… I did the same thing the last time I had to present. I am sure there are plenty of others out there that are just as bad… :)

    How did your presentation go?

  2. Ducas, on July 4th, 2007 at 3:18 pm Said:

    You know that you could have put a slide together in the time it took you to write this… only joking :)

  3. Paul Turner, on July 4th, 2007 at 3:29 pm Said:

    So true…

  4. Paul Stovell, on July 4th, 2007 at 3:36 pm Said:

    @Debbie - yeah, I’d like to say this post was in jest, but unfortunately it wasn’t :) the last presentation I did using this technique seemed to go OK though, and I’ll be using it again for the presentation I’m doing tomorrow night…

    @Ducas - yeah, but it’s easier to convince my brain to spend 10 minutes writing a blog post than 20 minutes preparing a slide deck :)

  5. Grant, on July 4th, 2007 at 3:38 pm Said:

    Don’t forget you need to confirm it with the organiser. Otherwise it’s all moot :)

  6. Eric Denekamp, on July 4th, 2007 at 6:48 pm Said:

    Sounds familiar. I had something sximilar last time I presented: and I had the “luck” of my machine crashing the night before the presentation. I was lucky to have my demo’s and slides on my external Harddrive. so after creating everything, I needed extra time to get my machine up and running….

  7. Presentation Preparation « notgartner, on July 4th, 2007 at 10:04 pm Said:

    […] Presentation Preparation 4 07 2007 Hmm, I think that I might use Paul’s technique. […]

  8. Ed Blankenship, on July 6th, 2007 at 2:23 am Said:

    I’m definitely totally the same way! It’s crazy, but I seem to give better talks that way. :)

  9. Ken, on July 6th, 2007 at 10:56 pm Said:

    Hey, you stole my method of preparing my tax returns.

  10. Charles Sterling, on July 17th, 2007 at 6:15 pm Said:

    You gotta go with what works!

  11. Ismael El-Qudsi » Blog Archive » El Proceso de preparar una Presentación, on August 11th, 2007 at 10:08 am Said:

    […] suele seguir una especie de ritual (al menos desde mi punto de vista y según comenta el MVP Paul Stovell y yo he traducido […]

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    Me in 2006
    My name is Paul Stovell, and I am a software developer from Australia. I work for Readify, a .NET consulting company specialising in technical readiness. I am also a Microsoft MVP. In my spare time I work on Bindable LINQ, a set of open source extensions that enable data binding over LINQ queries.

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