So back at the start of October (the 13th to be exact), I gave a presentation about Suura to the Big Ideas ’09 conference (as those of you on LinkedIn might have spotted). It was definitely something new – I’ve been in a client-facing role before, but standing up in front of 150 VCs is a different kettle of fish, and the nine or ten one-on-one interviews with various people that followed were equally intense (albiet in a different mode).It’s definitely odd to see yourself in the promotional brochures for an event…
…but if that was intimidating, the presentation is even worse. Imagine this view, but fill every seat with someone who might be looking to invest in your startup…
The large screen at the bottom was meant to show you your slides (which were also displayed behind you) so you didn’t have to turn round and ignore the audience in order to remember what was on them. What you can’t see in that photo (and what a few presenters who stepped two steps forward past the podium couldn’t see either) was the traffic light system on the podium letting you know when your ten minutes of fame was over; and when your presentation refused point-blank to fall below twelve minutes despite rehearsing until 0200 the night before, that’s a worry.
Enterprise Ireland did actually put together a communications training day for the presenters, bringing in Yanky Fachler of High Octane Communications to act as a tutor for the day. I found that it was aimed a bit more at the fundamentals than I needed myself (I’d done a fair amount of lecturing and client-facing work and presentations before I joined Suura) but it seemed very useful for a lot of the other presenters and there are quite a … Read the rest
