An Undermined Expert

I create online presentations and I was excited recently to be able to attend a webinar that would focus on new ways to add animation to my segments. The presenter obviously knew his stuff as he had sent out an impressive preview clip of what he's able to do with programs like Powerpoint.

But during the webinar he lost all credibility. Why? After a few minutes it was obvious that he had never practiced his talk with the webinar system. So he was talking about slides that didn't appear at the correct time. Then he would be silent for long stretches as he tried to figure out what he was doing wrong. Later he had a coughing spasm and didn't have any water nearby, which is something any speaker needs to have handy.

In the end, a guy who may know a lot about one type of technology was undermined by another. His poor performance convinced me to never hire the guy.

Giving effective presenations requires practice. Don't be undermined by a poor understand of the technology you'll have to use to get your message out.

What's With the 'Tude, Microsoft?

Recently Microsoft unveiled a website to promote it's new Photosynth photography system (www.photosynth.net). It's billed as way to view photos in 3-D environment. As a fan of photography I clicked to the site to find out more. While there I learned that right now it's only available for Windows based computers. I have an iMac so I couldn't view any of the images. That’s fine but I was a bit surprised by the message I got when I tried to take a look:

“Unfortunately, we’re not cool enough to run on your OS (operating system) yet. We really wish we had a version of Photosynth that worked cross platform, but for now it only runs on Windows.”

Is it me or is this a rather strange way to state the application is only available for the PC? The attitude is a bit of a turnoff. I was a PC user for eight years and this kind of statement reminds me why I made the switch.

Microsoft recently announced that it will use Jerry Seinfeld in a series of commercials with Bill Gates. Let's hope they don't inspire comparisons to the film, "Grumpy Old Men."