When the clicker broke, I thought we might be in trouble.
We were less than ten minutes from putting on the most unusual presentation in the history of the Technori Pitch, when the third presenter of the evening discovered the remote control wouldn’t advance his slides.
No big deal for him—he just used the laptop on the podium. But our pitch involved five different speakers, and I was supposed to run the slides from the wings while cueing our team when to take the stage. None of our speakers had practiced running the slides—they had their hands full already.
See, our community partners are such a big part of our story, we decided we’d let them tell it. Instead of one of us informing the crowd of 500 about Kauzu, we enlisted Brittany Langmeyer and Chorise Stewart from StreetWise, Vee Likes from the Centers for New Horizons and Harold T. Rice from the Albany Park Community Center. They’d tweaked and rehearsed their speeches, and we knew they’d make an indelible impression—as long as the slides worked.
Brendan and Mitch handle the Q & A
Fortunately, the fifth speaker was our own Brendan Farrell, who coolly manned the podium and handled the slides easily. No trouble.
(And I can’t forget to thank our associate James Lagen and our partners at Storymix for putting together this amazing video.)
How did our pitch go over? People got it. They told us they appreciated our left-field approach, and that our social mission was refreshing in such a tech-oriented atmosphere. The community message came through loud and clear—major thanks once again to Brittany, Chorise, Vee and Harold!
Were you there? Take Chorise’s advice: “If you really want to make an impact, help somebody get a job. Like us, Tweet us, YouTube us. Even if you’re not looking for a job, you probably know someone who is.”
