Continuing on in my log on how to become a cruise ship speaker.

I went to the lounge early. I scouted out who was going to be there to set up. I talked to the activity director and he assured me that someone from his team would be there 15-20 minutes early to help set up.

Twenty minutes till. Nobody.

Fifteen minutes till. Nobody

Ten minutes till. Nobody.

I found the little girl who promised to stop by to make sure somebody would be there. While she was calling around the tech guy showed up. Eight minutes till.

That’s not very long to make sure everything works. I usually do that the day before, the morning of. But he was nowhere to be found until eight minutes till. And we couldn’t get the projector to work. LCDs were no problem.

More fiddling. Tick tick tick.

Projector comes on at 1 minute till.

Where’s the clock? No clock. Gonna have to guess when my 35-40 minutes is up.

Point: Sometimes all the planning in the world still is not enough. You got to be ready to go with the flow. Old school if necessary = no notes, no slides, no visuals. Just talking.