Tips
About four years ago while giving a keynote presentation about leading “the Facebook generation” in the workplace, disaster struck. I was about mid-way through the speech, talking about new models for employee benefit plans, when the following popped up on the screen — in front of 2,200 people:
That might look like a three-inch wide JPG on your screen right now, but imagine that about two-feet wide and a foot tall. Because that’s what it was in front of the audience.
Clearly, I’d forgotten to turn my instant messenger app off and I got hit by a roaming spambot. Along with 2,200 unsuspecting nice human resources executives.
It taught me two lessons:
- Never authorize a friend request from suziewhore83; and,
- Turn off all TSRs (IM apps, applets, online backups, email notifiers, etc.)
The only thing you want running when you’re giving a presentation is your presentation software. Nothing else.
Remembering to Shut Them Down
The hard part is remembering to shut all the apps, applets, and widgets down before you press Play on your presentation. That’s why I use the same first slide on all my decks. Here it is:
The slide is never shown to people in the audience. It’s just there to remind me to turn everything off. (A “TSR” is a throwback to DOS days — it refers to any program which launches, then hides, but stays in memory doing things or stays ready to become active at any time.)
Force Quit: Make Sure Everything Is Closed
Don’t just assume that because your Windows Taskbar or Mac Dock is clear of other running applications you’re ready to go. Those TSRs hide everywhere, and often invisibly. Here’s how to make sure everything is closed.
On a Mac, quit all the applications in the dock. (You won’t be able to quit the first icon called “Finder.” That’s okay.) Now, press Command-Option-Escape. A list of applications will appear. It will look something like this:
If you’ve done it right, there shouldn’t be many (if any) applications in the list. If there are, go to that application, save everything, and try to close it. If it won’t close, highlight its name in this dialog box and press “Force Quit.” (This is similar to the Ctrl-Alt-Del method to force Windows applications to quit.) If you’ve done this and things still pop up during your presentation, launch Activity Monitor and force-quit the offender from that program.
On Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and select Task Manager. You’ll get something that looks like this:
As with the Mac example, select the program that you want to quit, then click the End Task button.
So you’ve got a Facebook account and added a couple of dozen friends. In time, you begin to add some business contacts as well. Since your business contacts can now see your profile, you’re faced with a dilemma.
- Do you stop posting any personal comments like jokes, updates about your family, etc.?
- Or do you post only business information from now on, irritating your friends and family?
There’s a better solution, and it’s called Friend Splitting.
Keep reading…
Hi. You don’t know me, David, but I know you.
We were both in Toronto last week –me for some CBC meetings, and you because you were being scouted for a sports team. I’ll get into how I know that in a bit.
As I was rummaging around my documents folder at the hotel, I noticed another computer pop up on the same network we were using. It was yours. Normally, all you can do is see the computer name like DAMIAN04. My computers are always named WOPR or Joshua or some variant thereof. But in your case, you gave your computer your own name. Bad move.
Worse than that, you left many of your key folders, like Documents and Music, wide open for anyone to explore. Since you had a fairly unique name and I had some time to kill, so I let my fingers do the Googling.
Here is what Google told me about you — a random stranger who was obviously staying at the same hotel as I. I learned even more about you later because I friended you on Facebook and you added me. Even though you don’t have a clue who I am.
- You just graduated from a major University. Yes, I know the name.
- You are very well ranked at your sport. Three weeks ago, the local paper said your instincts were “prophetic.”
- I know the address of your home. And the fact that you hate your landlord. (Really, maybe you shouldn’t post that sort of stuff.)
- Your girlfriend’s name is Sarah. And dude, she’s way too young for you. Listen to your mother.
- Speaking of which, sorry to hear about your grandma. I’m glad she’s out of harm’s way.
- I know how much your scholarship was last year.
- I know where you work on weekends, when you got the job, and roughly how much you make.
- You hate speaking in front of crowds.
- You have three siblings. You really hate your youngest brother. I can’t say I blame you. That trick he pulled with your car was crappy of him.
- I know what songs you listened to last Friday night, at exactly what time, and in what order.
- You have an unnaturally strong crush on Alyson Hannigan. This is something you haven’t told your girlfriend yet.
- I know where you do your banking.
- I know where your dad works. Since I also know his position, I can get a pretty good bead on how much he makes too.
For the record, I emailed “David” — not his real name — and cleared the publication of this with him. He said he had no idea his computer was open and is rethinking his policy of friending anyone who asks. Remember, I didn’t open a single document on David’s computer. I got all this information from a Google search and his Facebook page.
This reminds me of when I spoke to an audience of security experts in Stockholm. To demonstrate how even experts forget the “little things,” I opened up a computer I found on the network in front of the audience, and walked through his files, including opening a marketing flyer for his security company, promoting how they’re experts at locking computers down. Hilarity ensued.
Oh, and for the record, David ended up signing a deal when he was in Toronto. I’d have bought him a drink if I’d have known where he was going to be. I do, after all, know what he looks like.
Have you ever been at the uncomfortable end of someone knowing more about you than you realized?
