My big presentation in Dallas crashed when I accidentally shared my screen with a cat meme tab open

I was halfway through showing our Q2 numbers to the whole team last Tuesday when my browser decided to refresh and put a picture of a grumpy cat wearing a tiny hat front and center for a solid five seconds before I could switch back.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_morgan1mo ago

That "grumpy cat wearing a tiny hat" is the exact kind of thing I used to think would ruin a talk. But honestly, after a similar slip up, I found it just makes you seem more human. It broke the ice way better than my perfect slides ever did.

piperr581mo ago

My first big presentation in college had a slide where I accidentally left a browser tab open in the screenshot. It was a recipe for banana bread. The whole room laughed, but then three people asked me for the link after class. That mistake got more interest than my actual topic.

adam_nguyen73d agoTop Commenter

Whoa, that's actually kind of genius though. Most people try so hard to look perfect in presentations it's almost robotic. Your banana bread slide probably made you way more memorable than some dry data chart. Maybe the real trick to public speaking is just being bad at it on purpose. People connect with the real stuff way more than the polished version they never believe anyway.