I’ve spent the past two days putting all my thoughts into a single presentation.
I don’t think I’ve spent this long on how to tell a specific story for some time.
Not in Keynote, anyway.
I realised earlier today as I was ‘walking’ someone through the deck, how much I actually cared about the outcome of its delivery.
Really cared.
I took the time to really think about the 15 slides in this presentation.
It’s only 15 slides.
But each one has to really land.
Together they have to tell a coherent story.
They have to move and keep people’s attention, so I’ve done what I would normally steer clear of and used multiple builds to make things seem, well, filmic.
Thanks to Marcus.
The best feedback I got today was that the person wanted to know more.
They had questions – not the usual difficult ones, but probing ones that dug deeper into the ideas and suggestions.
There are gaps – which is inevitable as I am basing everything on a 45-minute call which took a turn I wasn’t expecting.
I’m excited, so a few stupid mistakes got missed.
That’s what rehearsals are for.
They’re fixed now.
Which is good.
Ready for tomorrow.
Although, I’ve discovered that Microsoft Teams doesn’t like Keynote and won’t show it full screen.
However, I’ve still got time to work out how to do things another way, through a browser.
And then the presentation got moved to Monday.
So the entire senior leadership team of the organisation I’m speaking to can be there.
Things just went up a level.
And now I’m even more excited.
But.
I know from experience that things can be improved.
And that things can get a lot worse if you overthink things.
So I’ll have a good sleep, I hope.
A sleep uninterrupted by worrying about the presentation.
I’ll leave that until Sunday evening.
It’ll be just like the old days.