So, You Want To Be A Speaker?
People sometimes ask me for speaking tips.
I think they expect something about commanding the room or harnessing their inner power, a phrase that sounds like it should involve crystals and a moon calendar.
I only have one tip:
Use your own computer.
I learned this the way we learn most truths in life—through humiliation witnessed by hundreds of strangers.
The first incident happened when a conference asked me to deliver my slides on a USB drive to the AV team behind the stage. This sounded shady, but they said it was “not negotiable,” a phrase usually reserved for ransom demands.
Backstage, I found the technicians in charge: a married couple clearly rehearsing the final scene of their marriage.
The wife angrily snatched the USB from me, while the husband offered his feedback on her entire personality.
After three insults and one very creative hand gesture, she turned and stormed away.
I admired her.
In fact, rooted for her.
It wasn’t until she was fully gone that I realized she was still carrying my presentation, now en route to somewhere far from the ballroom and presumably close to a courthouse.
I had ten minutes. Ten minutes to replace 45 carefully designed slides with… what, exactly?
Shadow puppets?
An interpretive dance?
A TED Talk about the importance of adapting when the universe steals your thumb drive?
Somehow, I managed. I delivered the entire presentation with absolutely nothing on the screen. Just me, talking, while a giant rectangle of glowing void reminded everyone how much more interesting a single picture of literally anything would have been.
It wasn’t my finest hour, but at least the screen stayed pure and innocent.
I wish I could say the same for what I now call The Nashville Incident.
There, a well-meaning AV guy was assigned to run my presentation from his own computer. Everything worked beautifully, which is exactly how betrayal always begins.
I relaxed. I trusted. I stopped looking for the exits.
Rookie mistakes.
Halfway through the program, he must have hit the wrong button—the button that opens the gates of hell—because suddenly my window minimized and his screen became the show. His entire browser displaying multiple open Pornhub tabs blossomed across the forty-foot display behind me. Each one representing a distinct category of human curiosity and possibly two felonies.
I had no idea. Not at first.
The audience, however, was fully informed.
Now, keep in mind that no one in the room knew it was his computer.
All they saw was me. The keynote speaker there to talk about Human Connection and apparently introducing them to a form of “networking” that requires consent forms and a warning label.
These were not the connections they were expecting.
After a few minutes of hiding behind his table like a meerkat hoping to avoid jury duty, the AV guy finally resurfaced and restored my slides.
And there I stood. Still miked, still spotlighted facing a difficult decision:
Pretend nothing happened, or clarify to the room that none of those “team-building activities” were mine.
I won’t tell you which choice I made. But my contract now includes a rider that simply reads:
I only use my computer. No exceptions.