Last time around I talked about how critical is managing time gaps in an event. I was elated that after writing that article a great example took place during the National Marketing Conference where I attended.

Ms. Matec Villanueva, Chairman of Publicis Manila, one of the speakers, showed a lot of creativity in not getting caught in those time gaps. The situation is this, when it was her turn to speak, her powerpoint presentation encountered a technical problem. It is not projecting in the big screen. A lot of time was spent trying to trouble shoot the problem. Alas, the trouble shooting activity took a lot of time from her presentation before it was projected to the screen.

However, instead of losing the energy of the audience, Ms. Matec Villanueva told a lot of stories, crack jokes and, even, dance to the enjoyment of the crowd as it gets involved with the antics of Ms. Villanueva. When everything is already ok, the audience is more pumped up and involved to Ms. Villanueva. It is like the speaker became a personal friend and her presentation became a casual conversation between two people.

She expressed why she hates encountering technical problems during presentation that is she does not like dead air.

I guess dead air brings more intensity to the meaning of time gaps. It brings more the emotion of enervation or a state of stagnation to a much more serious and deeper consequence.

Yes, dead air! We do not like it during events, therefore, we must labor hard to avoid this for taking over our events which we painstakingly created to be possible.