Evan James’ Post

View profile for Evan James, graphic

B2B Marketing Leader | Founder of Dreamwriter

Loved jumping back into doing public speaking. Although admittedly, not everything went to plan. The format for this event was to discuss a topic (in my case - the future of B2B marketing in AI) and then provide a live demo. First part, nailed. Then got to the live demo and a very edge-case ( I swear, first time this has happened) bug crashed the demo. 🤦♂️ Heart rate sky-rocketed. Talk-track obliterated. Had an immediate desire to stand up and walk to the nearest exit. But within seconds (felt like hours) I cracked a joke, restarted the demo, and pontificated on...well I don't remember exactly. At the end of it, still had a very engaged Q&A and had multiple audience members come up and ask for advice. Curious if anyone has experienced a similar public speaking moment? Any other useful tactics for pivoting when an external element disrupts your flow on stage?

View organization page for Dreamwriter, graphic

261 followers

Dreamwriter was thrilled to share our platform with the AI marketing community at AI For Marketers last night in SF! Great engagement from the audience, awesome questions, and most importantly - love the impactful ways marketers are leveraging #GenAI solutions to superpower #B2BMarketing campaigns. Thanks to Jackson Beaman and the AI User Group for hosting!

  • No alternative text description for this image
Brian Rowe

Climate Innovator: Bridging IoT, Data, AI, and Climate Adaptation

1mo

I learned early on to avoid live demos for events unless absolutely required, precisely to avoid uncertainty. Probably not appropriate in all cases. If a live demo is warranted, account for the worst case scenario and have a backup plan. That said, tech has been around long enough that most audiences recognize that hiccups can and will occur. Maintaining composure is probably most important. From my experience, the audience will react to your queues, so if you freak, they'll freak!

Like
Reply
Karin Becker

Enterprise Sales at Salesforce | ex-Google, Oracle, Bluekai

1mo

Welcome to the big leagues! Sounds like you rebounded just fine 🤠 I typically visualize what I will say and do if the tech breaks (slides, demo.. whatever) as part of my prep-- it's a strategy to keep those "fight or flight" sweaty palms and heart stopping bio-reflexes at bay when/if something does go wrong, because you've already played it out 🤓

Lana McKee

Passionate B2B Marketing Leader | Driving innovation and growth through Channel/Partner, Field and Customer Marketing

1mo

You did great! I thought you were natural and very competent, and composed. Really enjoyed seeing what the product does and so many possibilities for applications.

Brian Bird

Aidaptive: Commerce Evolved | ex-CoFounder/COO @QuanticMind

1mo

Nicely handled! It'll happen, but sounds like you rolled with it gracefully and kept it authentic.

Ali Asif

Product Leader • Founder • Plant Dad

1mo

It’s Murphy’s Law! Glad to hear you were able to adapt and drive home the value of the product

See more comments

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore topics