I survived a speaker’s worst nightmare

An even worse variant happened to me at Defcon. They put me in the wrong room. I was giving the talk that became "Inequality and Risk" and I noticed people kept getting up and leaving. After about 10 minutes, I stopped and asked what was going on, and someone said "Isn't this the talk on lockpicking?"

I can appreciate this. I am a Lutheran pastor (as well as a CTO for a printing company) and while preaching one Sunday a few years ago, I flipped my page over and, to my horror, discovered that the second side was the same as the first. Needless to say, I did not have a duplexing printer at the time.

Though I had been using written-out manuscripts for a couple years, at that moment I was grateful for being forced by my profs (and I hated it at the time) to preach from an outline. I did that five years straight, week after week.

When I flipped the page, everybody knew something was wrong (I don't hide my reactions well), but at least I was able to recover: just try to recall the key points and keep on going.

This has happened to me, and I did something similar. Since then I've learned - always check the program for your name, title and abstract. Doing so is part of a professional approach, not doing so is understandable, but leaves you open to this kind of problem.

It happens more often than you might think. Sometimes the program is right, and then a last minute change leaves everyone confused.

Usually a good speaker is worth listening to regardless, but it does look bad. The comment is right - listen to your audience, work with them to find a suitable compromise, promise what's necessary, do what you can.

I was once at a Microsoft conference when a speaker didn't show. We waited 15 minutes when finally a sweaty, scruffy dude comes running into the room panting all apologetic-like. Apparently he had been in his boxers relaxing in his hotel room about a mile away and 15 minutes prior when he got a call from the organizers. His presentation wasn't in 2 hours like he'd expected. It was right then and there. I felt really bad for him.

First, thanks to everyone for reading my worst nightmare and commenting on it. :)

+1 to RiderofGiraffes for that tip: From now on, I am reading the program online and in print. No surprises, please.

I only wish the BlogWorld organizers had responded to my direct e-mail explaining the situation and asking for ways to prevent it for other speakers in the future.

Wade Kwon Birmingham Blogging Academy

Now that is one crazy experience. I'd expect better from BlogWorldExpo, but messing up on your talk's summary is usually a killer.

I guess the survey (show of hands) was the right approach to immediately know what to do. What if you had had about half and half? What would you have done then?