When the presentation is a demo…

I’m still decompressing after three long days in Huntsville for Directions Media’s Rocket City Geospatial Conference. I’ve been reflecting on the presentations I saw there, several of which were basically demos. I found myself antsy as presenters went through the marketing/positioning slides that always preceded the demo. As the bullet points flashed and different parts of the system/software faimly/app were mentioned a little voice in my head kept screaming “What does it look like?” Strange thing: I already knew as I’d seen almost all of the software before!

So, that’s my question: If the “sexy” part of the presentation is the demo, how should a presenter best position it? Here are three options:

1) Some slides first, then the demo, then more slides
2) Demo first, then slides
3) Slides first, then demo

I think the vast majority of presentations I’ve seen at conferences (and webcasts from vendors) have used #3: slides first, then demo. Sometimes I feel like I’m being held captive since I want to see the “good part” but need to sit through the prep. I noted that at the FOSS4G demo theatre there was a “no powerpoint rule” and you had to show actual software. I also have to say that I never managed to see a presentation there, so I’m not sure how it went.

Still, I like the idea of being able to weave all that marketing/positioning into a live demo. My gut feeling is that good software should be able to “show” what pain it lessens, or what problem it solves. It’d be like hiding the vegetables in the spaghetti sauce, as some parents do. I suspect the audience would not even know they were eating their veggies!