Comments on: It’s Not The Meltdown, But How You Handle It

By: Brian Monahan, Expert in the Rough

Brian Monahan, Expert in the Rough — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:49:31 +0000

Jonathan,

Welcome to the world of Audio Visual and technology. No matter how many rehearsals or redundancies you can build into technology it will eventually fail.

I work in the audio visual production field and produce events for thousands.

Although I still have many sleepless nights, I have created a mantra for myself. The equipment will eventually fail. My only option is that I must know how to dance.

When the equipment fails, it is time to dance. It appears you did it instinctively on this one.

My game plan is always have an analog backup plan. If the mic goes out yell. If the video goes out describe. If the lights go out have a candle. If they all go out sneak out the back door.

Welcome to my world.

At the end of the day, you need to know you are going to be alright on the inside, despite the crisis on the outside.

Brian

By: Monday Reading Roundup - Take #11

Monday Reading Roundup - Take #11 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:21:53 +0000

[...] Meltdowns are something really hard to avoid. No matter how hard you try, they will still happen. Jonathan Fileds explaines last week that meltdowns are really not important, what’s important is how you handle them. [...]

By: Jagad Guru

Jagad Guru — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:07:33 +0000

people basically encounter all sorts of stuff throughout their life. Some may be good and some things aren’t. Sometimes things don’t go how we want or expect them to and sometimes positive things turn up unexpectedly. People then tend to react adversely towards the negative stuff and fall into anxiety affecting them in some way if not deeply and often messes up their whole day or week. However, if try to analyze our situation, we can see that we can’t be in ‘total’ control over everything because of our position of being dominated. Through past experience and by simply observing, we could realize that there are so many outside forces affecting us for which we can’t control. We may have some control over certain things to a certain degree only but can’t stop and the higher forces governing us. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to affect us. The stress it could cause us doesn’t necessarily have to drive us down. It is actually on how we cope up with it. And that then would bring us back to the basic understanding of our identity, who we really are. Through meditation we can see our actual condition, our position and our function and basing our activities and our outlooks on these can make it so that we have a deeper understanding of what’s happening and how we can deal with it. Of course there are certain things which we can do something about such as better preparation and stuff in that level, but when the shit hits the fan no matter how much preparation we did, as Jonathan said, we’d just have to accept it because its our karma after all.

“A lotus rises above the water…untouched by its impurities. Similarly, through meditation, a person can live in this world untoucjed by its anxieties.” – Jagad Guru

By: Jonathan Fields

Jonathan Fields — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:26:44 +0000

@ Matthew – Actually, I’d have to agree, what I meant to say was I’m a fan of slides that”enhance” a presentation, but all to often, they end up doing the opposite. But, when I look at presentations like Gore’s Inconvenient Truth keynote slides, no doubt they make the experience profoundly more impactful

@ Michael – Agree, it’s really easy to slide into that pattern, which is why I think it’s a good idea to pause, step back for a moment and triage the meltdown, so you know what needs your attention most and where you’ll have the greatest fastest impact in solving the problem.

By: Michael Martine, Blog Consultant

Michael Martine, Blog Consultant — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:26:24 +0000

The thing I always try to watch out for is during a meltdown is getting stuck in an endless loop. You fixate on something and obsess about it to the detriment of action you should be taking.

By: Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:32:38 +0000

Jonathan,

Big fan of the slides, just being prepared when Murphy rears his ugly head and humbles us.

Always partial to this style of presentations. May be a bit too much “slam poetry” for some, but sure is a beautiful and memorable style of presenting.

Click on link below to watch this video.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

By: Jonathan Fields

Jonathan Fields — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:16:52 +0000

@ riva – totaly agree, once the meltdowns are far enough behind us, they often turn into some of the best stories and laughs.

@ Nickey – oooh, I know that law firm drill well, it seems like every hour was about responding to meltdowns, but you’re right, once of the good things about that environment is that it teaches that nearly everything is recoverable if you just keep your cool and plot your way back

@ Matthew – Funny you mentioned Keynote, I am in the process of figuring out whether to do a Keynote presentation for Blogworld this weekend or just speak. I know the others will likely have slides, but I just keep feeling that slides provide a crutch that takes some of the vital edge out of it. The best speakers I’ve seen could’ve all carried an audience for hours without a single slide

By: Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:59:33 +0000

I had a similar experience last week. I was speaking to hundreds of people as a keynote speaker to a National Association on building a community with new media on-line and off-line tools.

I pride myself of Keynote presentations. Fancy graphics-Presentation Zen…

No matter what I tried I could not synch the LCD projector with my Mac. We tried another Mac.

I had grown to let my slides speak for me.

I learned that I must be prepared to only have the slides serve as a compliment to my talk.

I went free-play on them and then provided them with a download link of my presentation.

I think it was one of my best. I learned a lesson.

By: Nickey, Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC

Nickey, Personal Touch Concierge Service, LLC — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:37:37 +0000

Nothing like working in a law office – litigation – to learn all about meltdowns and how to handle them. You’re right on track with this post. It is, however, a learned behavior and one that I’ve pretty much mastered now in my own business. So if you’re experiencing a meltdown and you don’t handle it exactly how you would have liked to, just keep in mind that the next time you will handle it better! or the next time . . .

By: riva

riva — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:17:01 +0000

It’s tough to remember in melt down , but I always try to remember to breathe and not jump to conclusions. Of course, easier said than done. But in the end we save ourselves time and money. Very little is as critical as it seems in the moment.
My most recent melt down involved a bat in the house. Flew right over my head as I walked in from a lovely candlelight dinner in the yard while my beloved took a shower. Since he was blowdrying his hair, he couldn’t hear me scream for help. And every time I tried to get past the bat into the house, the winged one seemed to swoop down directly at me. Finally I went around to the front door of the house, and as I stood there screaming again, once, twice, it finally dawned on me to just stand aside, leave the door open and shut my mouth.
Of course, given an easy way out the bat took it. I could have saved myself a lot of unnecessary agitation if I’d done exactly what I did without all the vocal hysteria. My instincts were kicking in just fine in terms of problem solution, but my crazy brain wanting to be the damsel in distress and SAVED from it — is what made the situation so stressful.
Of course, like every tough situation, now it’s a source of amusement and laughter.
You always remember the crises. And they get funnier and funnier with time.