The Campbell Academy Blog (63)

Perfect presentation

Monday mornings are the sessions where I set up the week in the shed in my back garden or my kitchen with the dogs when it's freezing cold and raining.

But today, I found myself haring up to work at about 20 past seven in the morning in the pitch black, having already walked the dogs in the freezing rain to get myself set up to do a presentation to seven French dental nurses who are visiting Straumann headquarters in Basel.

It was all a bit stressful.

I got to work a bit later than I wanted and had to shift my computer around back into my office because we've been using it for something else.

I got set up on my little perch at my desk, the one you might see me at if you ever see any videos of me on social taken by the guys here.

I got ready to begin my four-hour presentation with a 15-minute break in the middle, which would be translated into French.

I had worked on this all of yesterday morning and, in fact, a little bit last week because I can't stand turning up to these things when I don't know what I'm doing or talking about, and I was delighted to see an old colleague from Straumann UK, Lizette, who is now high up in Straumann who was running the whole show.

What then happened was a series of quite hilarious events where the technology didn't work, no one could hear anyone else, no one could get online in the Straumann headquarters, and the translator who was translating my words into French was going mental because she was so stressed as she hadn't had enough time to prepare.

I'm writing this blog at 8.15 a.m. I was supposed to have started 15 minutes ago, but we've not yet done the 15-minute introduction that's going to happen before I speak.

I was then told that I was not speaking for four hours, but I was speaking for three hours, but now it very much looks like I'm speaking for 2.5 hours and counting down.

It just goes to show, doesn't it, that when we think that everybody else's life is lined up, all the ducks are in a row, and everything is perfect?

This is a billion-dollar corporation with all the resources at their fingertips and instead of doing my lecture, I'm writing a blog because the technology doesn't work.

Fantastic.

The good news is that I still get paid, so perhaps this is actually the first blog that I've ever been properly paid for.

Hooray!