Virtual Conference Presentation

Today, I do a first, at least for me. And this consists in presenting at a conference in Las Vegas from the comfort of my home office. I am a little afraid as I have no idea who is at the other end of the line and whether they can hear me well. I did send them my presentation ahead of time, so they will be able to follow and get plenty of animation to ensure they don't fall asleep. But I have no idea what it will be for them, not having the speaker standing in front of them and looking at them in the eyes. The advantage for me is that I don't need to dress up. They will not realize I don't wear a tie.

We have done a first series of sound checks, unfortunately we realized I could not hear the audience. Little problem. I felt blind and deaf. They just sent me an e-mail telling me they have fixed it, but the previous speaker is now on, so no way to test. At the half hour we will test again. let's cross the fingers, and hope for the best. I really don't line not being fully prepared and sure that the technology works. Should be used to it, working for a technology company. But this is one of the lessons I learned over time, always check the technology if you want to avoid surprises. From my side, I just silenced the home phone in my office to ensure that one does not ring while I am presenting. I also asked the children not to disturb me. The last thing I want is having them making hearable comments while I am presenting. So, now it is waiting time. We are supposed to be all set.... Oh, and one last thing. As I don't trust net meeting or any of those tools, they will advance the slides for me, avoiding potential Internet delays and other surprises. Don't want them to be three slides behind what I am telling them about.

Ok, the time arrived and I was nicely introduced to the audience. Things went well, I warmed up, as always, after the second slide and got things going pretty well. Unfortunately I could not hear any return from the conference room which was a little awkward. I started pacing up and down in my office as I would have done in front of the room. So, it sounded business as usual. Unfortunately about 20 minutes in the presentation, the line went down and I got the beep-beep-beep signal suddenly. Since I have not heard from them. So, I let you to judge... success or not success? But was an interesting experience anyway.