Episode transcript:

Matt:
So, Alper. So tell me what’s on your mind today?

Alper:
Matt Today I’m trying to turn this recording into one where I rant and rave about the problems and use it as a, as a therapy session. But actually referring to something that is an actual thing that happened a couple of months ago. A short while ago I was sitting in a room full of people and listening to entrepreneurs who want to receive investments for their projects, and they were pitching to us.

Alper:
Okay. I was I was sitting there as one of the potential investors and one particular project actually had attracted my attention more than the others. Okay. But at the height, at the height of their presentation, the team wanted to show a video to demonstrate how the product worked. And unfortunately, that’s one thing started to fall apart. The software that they were using, it didn’t.

Alper:
It didn’t. I mean, it’s no laughing matter because I’ll come to the significance of that. What’s happened is it didn’t work as expected, and the team found themselves standing in front of us not knowing what to do.

Matt:
Oh, okay.

Alper:
They they said they they told the video contains some important points to demonstrate how the product worked. And it it was actually how the product worked was actually the value proposition that they were bringing. So it was it was extremely important that we see how they ended up. Yeah. Yeah. They ended up spending some time, a couple of minutes to make it work.

Alper:
But of course this was a pitch contest, so the timing was critical and rigid. Yeah. And these these minutes were deducted from from the actual time. And in the end, the video didn’t work.

Matt:
Okay.

Alper:
And one of the team members uncomfortably said, well, if you want to see the video, come forward to the desk. After all the presentations are finished, after all the themes, all the other terms presented. Okay. And I deliberately remained in my seat after the event finished, after all the presentations finished to see if any of the other investors would proceed, would go to the desk and and ask to see the video, because it was it was an interesting project.

Matt:
And so what happened? And the investors go.

Alper:
None of them did. Well, I went because I was interested, but I was also interested in to see how how the other people would respond. No other person actually went to the desk and no one else. And I watched them just walk away. Yeah. And there’s the significance is there is a huge opportunity for for because of because of a problem that could have easily been avoided.

Alper:
So that’s why I wanted to bring it up today and not only in terms of investor presentations, but whenever representing to people, we can never know in which presentation which audience member may have the power to change the course of our lives. So we need to make sure that everything goes according to plan. Okay. In the presentations and I and over the past several years, I see that videos in presentations are one of the areas that that idea that caused the most problems.

Alper:
That’s why I wanted to talk about it today for sure. Which which are easily avoidable. So, yeah, that’s that’s what I want to talk about today.

Matt:
Okay, So when when, when the video didn’t work. So and in minutes, in terms of minutes, how many minutes went by while they were standing there trying to get the video to work before they finally gave up and said, okay, we’re just going to have to do this verbally?

Alper:
Well, they had a total of 4 minutes, so they had all to spend 2 minutes, which which amounts to a.

Matt:
Total of 4 minutes to do their whole their whole presentation.

Alper:
This was wow. Yes, this was a pitch contest. There were ten teams. So it was a pitch contest. So they didn’t have much time. It’s not like an hour long presentation that you could say, okay, we’re having some problems, Take a coffee break, we’ll come back. One would fix it.

Matt:
So and this single problem burned half of their half of their presentation time, is that correct?

Alper:
Half of their time. And I will say the entire presentation, the entire opportunity, I think I think they missed they missed a good one.

Matt:
So so first of all, just to start with, I mean, you’ve got your life’s work and you’ve got you’ve got 4 minutes to explain it. That’s really hard just to start to start with the That’s different enough. Yeah, that’s difficult enough. If everything goes perfectly and then your video doesn’t work. So. So tell me more. So. So what happened?

Alper:
Well, in their case, not much, but I mean, that much happened because the time was over and they had to leave the stage. And like I said, no one was none of the investors was a was interested enough at the end of the event to go and say, hey, the video didn’t work. I want to see it. Okay.

Alper:
So today I want to talk about it through ways of actually making sure that this doesn’t happen or preventing it as much as possible.

Matt:
Because look, so three ways of preventing this problem.

Alper:
Yeah. Okay.

Matt:
Go for it.

Alper:
Well, the first one is having the mindset that the Internet doesn’t exist. It’s not relying on Internet far. Okay, Well, yes, yes. We’re recording this in 2022. You know, the speeds are high. Everybody’s connected. Even if it was my speaker in the in my apartment, it’s connected to the Internet. Somehow that connection can break at any moment. And I don’t want that to happen during an important presentation that’s that I’m delivering to a critical audience.

Alper:
So do not rely on Internet connectivity, and I recommend that you always have or always keep an offline copy of the video, especially if it is a very important video. Always keep an offline copy on the computer, on a stick, etc.. So so like it’s the 1990s and we don’t have internet or we don’t have Internet. Okay, So, so that’s the first that’s the first step.

Matt:
You’ve got the video sitting on your USB stick, for example, and the Internet goes down. So you’re you’re saying take that video and play it on the screen so that people can see it.

Alper:
And well, actually, my second point is about that.

Matt:
Okay, go ahead.

Alper:
The video on the USB stick is a last resort backup if everything else goes south. Okay. So my second recommendation will be, yes, keep a video on the stick, but during the presentation, embed the video directly into the presentation so that you don’t have to play with a switching between the presentation software and the file explorer player, etc., etc..

Alper:
Sure, sure. The second tip that I want to share is put embed the video directly into the presentation. Now some people can identify with the fact while people are old enough like our age, can identify with the fact that previously this was a problem. Yeah. When when the computers weren’t good enough, when the software wasn’t robust enough, embedding the video directly into the presentation had its own set of problems that that it brought in.

Alper:
The computers would freeze, the presentation software would crash at the worst case. In the worst case, you would have to reset the computer, etc.. So luckily, most of those days are over, so the computers are strong enough, puts the video file directly onto the slides. Okay. And play it when the time comes. Now be careful with autoplay because when you’re presenting you don’t want to come to the slide of the video and suddenly start in the background playing.

Alper:
There are settings in all presentation software to make sure that when you come to the slide for the video, it actually waits for you. It actually waits for the presenter to push the button to start playing. So put the video into the slide directly, save it with the presentation file and set the autoplay off so that it starts only when you’re ready to show the video.

Alper:
That’s now, that’s important. Okay. And the third tip that I want to share is has to do with preparation and rehearsal. Okay. In this case, I’m talking about more about the technical preparation. You need to verify that your video and your presentation in general will work seamlessly and without any problems across multiple platforms. Okay. What I mean by that is, for example, in this case the presenters were using a setup given to them by the organizers.

Alper:
Okay, A So you may have prepared your presentation on a mac using, for example, keynote presentation software, but then suddenly you may find yourself in a situation where the setup is PowerPoint on the windows. So you need to make sure in advance that your presentation will work without any problems across all the platforms. Okay. And that’s why you need to prepare and rehearse in advance.

Alper:
Okay. But at the same time, you need to find out, for example, if you’re going to present on a computer, which is not yours, you need to ask to the organizers to the event in advance what is a platform, what is the software, what am I going to use, what is a screen, etc. I need to clarify all these things to make sure that you don’t have any last minute surprises.

Alper:
Okay? Because I have been there too. I have been in. I have been I have seen so many people come to the venue with their presentations on a stick which wasn’t compatible with with the with this technical setup that’s the organizers had there. So they had to they have to juggle between and not juggle, but they had to rush to make sure that the presentation work and in some cases it didn’t.

Alper:
So you do not have the luxury of finding out at the last moment that your presentation is not 100% compatible with the setup that is in front of you. Okay.

Matt:
So let’s before we before we wrap up, let me just make sure that I’m hearing you correctly so you’re actually not saying embed your video, for example. Tip number two was embed video, right? Was that tip number.

Alper:
Yes. Into the onto the slide? Yeah. Yeah.

Matt:
Embed our video onto the slides. So you’re saying or you’re advising your clients or you advise people that don’t consider embedding this the video on the slide. Don’t consider that a backup. Do that from the start. So these are not backup plans in case Plan eight doesn’t work. You’re saying just just assume 100% chance at plan A is not going to work and prepare for these other situations, Is that what you’re saying?

Alper:
Yes. Well, the first step the first step that I shared, having the video offline on a stick was a a total Plan Z for cases where everything goes wrong. Okay. But you still need to you still want to show the video so that you don’t have to say, well, I had a great video. It was online and there is a problem with the Internet.

Alper:
So I cannot show it to you. Oh, no, You don’t have the luxury to say that. So you’re right. This the second step is actually the most crucial step, which is including the presentation onto the slide. So instead of backup, in case your plan doesn’t work, it’s actually the recommended step.

Matt:
Okay. Wow. Good point. Good point. All right. So I’ve got like, this brings 10 million things to mind, but we don’t have time for those, so we’ll just leave those for a future episode. So we’ll wrap up here and we’ll save those questions for future episodes. So thank you very much for the tape, by the way, Alper.

Alper:
You’re welcome. My pleasure.

Matt:
All right. So so that wraps up today’s episode and we will see you on the next episode of The White Rabbit.

Alper:
Okay, good talking to you.

Matt:
Good talking to you. I’ll talk to you later.