You Are Here, But Where is Your Presentation?

I attended an event in which the speaker was flown to California from the East Coast. He decided to make a mini-vacation out of the trip and flew in early so he could spend time touring the Napa Valley wine country, just 45 minutes. He left his laptop in the back seat of his rental car while he stayed overnight in a hotel. The morning he was scheduled to give his dinner presentation, he discovered his car had been vandalized and the laptop, with his presentation, and his flash drive, with the back-up cop, had been stolen.

First, never leave a laptop or any other piece of equipment in your car. Don’t even leave a laptop bag that doesn’t have a laptop in it. I had a client do that and the bag and all of the contents were taken even though there wasn’t a computer in it.

Second, if your presentation is dependent on PowerPoint slides, or any other information, which is on your computer, make sure you are not the only one with a copy. If you have an assistant helping you, give that person a copy on a flash drive or CD or, if they have a laptop, have them load it on their computer. If you are traveling out of your area to give a presentation, see if there is a local contact who would be willing let you e-mail a copy to them as a back up. Some of my clients still travel with slides they can place on an overhead projector in case modern technology fails them.

The speaker in my example ended up recreating his presentation from scratch on someone else’s laptop. The events of the day had left him little time to do this so his presentation was disorganized and confusing. Unfortunately, he had not planned his travel schedule well and did not have time to stay and answer a lot of questions.

Don’t let this happen to you. Be prepared for things to go wrong so if and when they do, you can rise above the problems and present yourself professionally.