How not to give a Demo: Lessons learned from a first-timer

An upside to giving demos is that if your viewer doesn't know you're a dev on the project (thinks you're just a business/sales person), they're a lot more honest with feedback. I've learned to never position myself as the guy who knows everything about the product...they're less afraid to 'hurt' my feelings.

How well I present seems to be inversely correlated to how stressed I am before the presentation. Most of my prep time is usually calming myself down and trying not to think about anything except what my intent is: to share what I know with others and learn from them if I can. Practicing that level of honesty usually works out in a public setting, regardless of what insanity occurs with projectors, laptops, Internet connections and the like.

Oh, also, if you want to do a demo, do a screen recording! Movies are much less prone to failure.

Excellent lessons! Anyone who has to give a presentation could stand to take them to heart. Unfortunately, most of us don't learn nearly as well from each other as we do from Professor Experience.

My most important lessons were 1) never assume that your PC is going to behave the same way at your desk as it will in the presentation room, and 2) when demoing software, never say anything more predictive than "Now watch this!"