How not to present

I was at a conference in Portland the other week where there were many E-marketing experts presenting... also known as the "Titans of E", as the leaflet put it. Whoever came up with that ridiculous name was definitely on the blue smarties.

Charlene Li (fellow petite oriental lady and social media superstar) was first up, followed by Mike Moran (IBM search marketing guru and potential stalking target). They stole the day as expected and set a high standard.

So how do you follow up people like this? Not sure. But now I know how not to do it, thanks to a certain VP of Disney Online.

Maybe feeling a little on the insecure side, he started off his presentation...

"As an MBA graduate from an Ivy league university, I could have done anything and worked anywhere - Wall Street, any Fortune 500 company..."

At this point, twat alerts rang from every corner of the room, and a once engaged audience started paying no attention to a word he said over the next 40 minutes of his presentation. At one point he did try to reel the audience back in, but he was met by uninterested looks by people who wished he did go to Wall Street. At least then he would be 3,000 miles away instead of here.

My lessons of the day:
1. No-one likes a bragger
2. Twat alerts are deadly so don't set them off