The rectangle behind you

A checklist before the talk

Here’s a checklist of things I do the evening before, and 15 minutes before my talk. I’d recommend you make one for yourself; having it thought out and written down gets rid of the unnecessary “have I forgotten anything!?” fear — you can just methodically go through all the bullet points and cross them out.

The evening before

Test the talk

• Go through the talk at the exact resolution you will eventually use.
• Go through the talk with the remote, get used to controlling it this way (during preparations, I usually use the keyboard).
• Go through the talk in the worst possible scenario: without internet connection, without the remote working. If you’re meant to hold the mic, practice with something resembling one.
• Go through the presentation and think which slides could be skipped.
• If you have time, prepare some extra slides for Q&A.

Back up the talk

• Make a backup of the talk to an SD card.
• Make a backup of the talk to an external server/Google Drive/Dropbox.
• If you have a complicated interactive talk, it might be worthwhile to make a simplified PDF out of it, and put it up on a server somewhere.
• If you have a complicated setup of your talk, write down instructions on how to get it up and running after after a reboot.
• Reboot your computer and test those instructions.

Charge your devices

• Start charging the computer.
• Start charging the remote.
• Start charging the countdown timer (I use my iPhone for this).

Prepare the computer

• Quit all the unnecessary apps.
• Quit/pause all the things in the upper-right Mac OS corner menu (Dropbox, CrashPlan, etc.).
• Remove all the tabs from your browser if you’re presenting from the browser.
• Enable Caffeine (or disable screen saver and energy saver)
• Make sure Do Not Disturb option is on for notifications:

• Clean up your desktop (or temporarily hide the icons)
• Change your wallpaper to something appropriate (theme of your talk or your conference?)
• Switch to a projector-friendly colour profile
• If you intend to use the mouse pointer to draw attention to some things on your slides, consider making the pointer bigger so that the audience can see it better (and also, it will make you feel like a superhero)

• Mute the sound or change the volume to 75% if you have sounds in your talk
• Turn off the Play feedback when volume is changed option. If you’re going to have to change the volume in the middle of your talk, the sound will be annoying. (You can always hold Shift when changing volume to bring the sound back.)

Pack

• laptop charger
• your presentation remote (you should have one)
• extra batteries if appropriate (for timer, phone, etc.)
• SD card with the talk backup; put in your wallet in case you misplace your computer bag
• countdown timer (I use my iPhone for this)
• Apple DisplayPort/VGA dongle (I never needed to use a DisplayPort/DVI one, but I bring it with me too, nevertheless)
• Apple Ethernet dongle
• perhaps an HDMI cable, just in case (here’s a cheap one)
• wireless base station if you need your own private internet-less network (e.g. for your remote)

15 minutes before

• Prepare the remote (in my case: turn it on :·) )
• Prepare your countdown timer (in my case: iPhone, so also go into airplane mode)
• Switch your phone into Do Not Disturb mode, or hide it somewhere
• Change something on one slide, just for good luck.
• Or not.

The rectangle behind you, a series of articles about interactive presentations.

By Marcin Wichary (@mwichary)