It happens to nearly every speaker at some point. They turn to their PowerPoint, but their PowerPoint is not there. It has crashed, gone away, disappeared into the computing netherworld. The speaker stammers, and tries to get back on track, but is really unable to. The entire speech is lost.

How to avoid this fate? 3 tips:

1) Don’t over-rely on PowerPoint – It’s a theme I reiterate a lot on this blog. Remember you and your ideas are the speech. Try to keep your PowerPoint to ten or fewer slides. Challenge yourself to use the spoken word to dazzle rather than visual images.

2) Have a back up plan – Think about how you might handle it if PowerPoint crashes. Find a good joke, or a witty saying to slip in. But most importantly…

3) MOVE ON QUICKLY – This is where people get hung up. They keep pressing their little PowerPoint remote for what seems like an eternity. Remember you have an audience in front of you. Say something to the extent of “who needs PowerPoint anyway..” and dive into your content as if nothing happened. If you prepared properly, you can still knock it out of the park.

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