On the Squidoo Lens - Don't Eat the Steak - I have a list of 5 important presentation rules. In one of them I ask, "Can you be as good without the slide show?"
Today I was challenged to see if I could do as well without any supporting material. The books that were supposed to arrive the day before the signing/presentation were somewhere on a truck that night. No one seemed to know if they would arrive before the event. I'm not sure how much of a book signing you can do without books.
Since I have been busy lately I put off working up the presentation and the supporting materials until today - the day of the signing. When I got up the power to my whole house was out. It was out all day long. It only came back on at 5 PM! We had to leave at 6 PM to be at the event on time. (The black box represents our house all day long.)
I decided early in the day, when it looked like the power would be out for a long time, that if I had lights at the meeting and books, the rest would be gravy. People were coming to get a book and hear the talk about it. They were not coming for a fancy slide show. If they were well then they would be disappointed.
I did not use PowerPoint, Flash, or any projected image for the talk. I had a computer in the back of the room playing the "Don't Eat the Steak" video alternating with a video that displays the 8 chapter maps with a brief voice-over for each, but the rest of the show was all on me.
It went very well and no one even mentioned the absence of a slide show. We video taped the presentation and we will put the better 5 minute segment sup over the next few weeks. I'll also get the book overview video on to the book website in the next day or so.
Now that the lights are on, and I am at home, I am ready to turn them off - it's 11:59 PM
(I kept this to one page, so as to not annoy my pal Hugh. 
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UPDATE - According to Becky Carroll a presentation of this type is called a Naked Presentation. I wonder how that would read on a resume or my speaker's on-pager?
Roger, congratulations on doing a presentation "naked"! This is how I believe many people would feel if they didn't have their presentation behind them. I believe we can be much more powerful in our speaking when we can stand alone and just talk about our subject. It allows us the freedom to be much more passionate and to connect with the audience, who now are not busy staring at a screen.
Great job, and congratulations also on your book.
Posted by: Becky Carroll | June 1, 2007 12:20 PM | Permalink to Comment