Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Dignity & Power Cords

If somebody ever invents a way in which to plug in your laptop to power extension cords at a meeting/conference without the completely dignity-robbing act of crawling under tables ....

Actually, I'm about to present at the OASIS Symposium - shouldn't there be some sort of support staff to plug it in for me?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

[shameless plug]

Paul, the solution is to use SunRays. You log on before the conference, you bring up your presentation in slideshow mode and then you yank your smart card out of the SunRay.

Then, you walk into the conference room, stick your smart card into the SunRay at the podium, and your presentation (in slideshow mode) appears magically like the proverbial large drinks bill.

OK, this all assumes that a certain level of infrastructure is in place... but then so do all conference presentation facilities. The difference is that with this one, there's no table-burrowing.

[/shameless plug]

Alternative solution: you're right... someone once advised me as follows: "Never tolerate sub-standard AV support. If your message is worth putting across, it's worth more than a limp Barco lead and an electric floor-socket."

He included in that advice 'having to carry your laptop up and connect it in front of everyone, when you should be looking at the audience and engaging with them'.

Since then, I have not yet met an AV support technician who didn't agree.

My own corollary to this: never, ever piss off the AV support technician... just as you should never, ever piss off cabin service staff or restaurant staff. In all cases, the revenge they can exact is far greater than anything you have the power to do to them ;^)