Whether or not you intend to be a speaker on cruise ships (free travel for 2), every good speaker should have a zip lock bag with his or hers back up tools. At the top of the list is a flash drive. #1 reason: What do you do if your laptop dies? Most ships will not provide you a techie guru to bring it back up. You may be on your own.
Luckily, other speakers or even passengers will have a PC you can borrow for an hour. If your talk is on a flash drive as well as you internal memory, you will save much embarrassment by plugging it in and off you go.
While speaking on a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) trip years ago, I witnessed a featured speaker melt down in front of 200 guests. His machine died and he had to go extemporaneous. This is no problem if you are the expert and know your material. He didn’t. Bad.

Invest in a quality product. I use nothing but PNY flash drives. As your PowerPoints get clogged with high rez photos, you should have a 16 GB unit. This allows you to store many talks if asked to give more than your contracted amount. PNY is a huge memory company located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey. Notice I did not say Asia. American Quality. If you get your flash drives at a local outlet, they are guaranteed for as long as it takes you to get to your car. PNY offers a 1-year warranty.
Final Point – keep them away from magnets…like your name badge.
PNY Flash Drive => Order from Amazon
Related: More items to put in your Pear Harbor Kit
Drop your email address below to get updates to this site.
[maxbutton id=”3″]