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Presentations can be nerve-wracking events. I’ve had presentations, where my remote control jinxed the projector, the projector decided to go black every few minutes, and of course the dreaded application of Murphy’s Law, where your laptop drive dies right before your presentation.

(No joke, the last has happened to me twice, including in January. It’s one reason that I always keep good backups, including an external “hot backup” drive that I can use to boot my PowerBook.)

Interesting… I read recently about tips for presentations “under pressure”, focusing on giving talks when other types of problems occur.

All I can say, is that I try a three step approach:

• Have backups of my talk (in case of technical problems). Nothing keeps you relaxed like knowing you can always give a talk another way.
• Have backup slides to address obvious, common questions. Since I often use diagrams and visual data, it’s easier to have a few extra slides prepared than to head to a whiteboard or chalkboard.
• Know how to handle pressure questions and still keep the presentation going.

The latter is, naturally, the most difficult of the three.