Managing technical failures

Jennifer Reif: Yes, especially as I'm still relatively new to the presentation and demo activities. A venue that I had one time came with an A/V guy, who had a downstage monitor as well. I was working with my laptop monitor, the screen behind me, and then the downstage monitor.

I was trying to get that to flow, going from presentation mode to demo mode. I had to use a separate display to have my presentation notes up. Then I had to switch and mirror the display to throw my demo up there without having to look at one screen and type. That made me a little nervous, but it was fine.

I had another presentation where there was some trouble getting the visual up. It was just me waiting and trying to figure out how to keep people occupied, while trying to monitor what was going on. I gave an introduction and asked a couple of questions about the audience's background, to just get the room engaged while everything was being worked on in the background...