Showing Off
Doug Engelbart is well-known for giving one of the greatest presentations of all time, in 1968, called the Mother of All Demos. Doug is also responsible for just about every aspect of modern computing, so we wouldn’t want to gloss over that. Doug’s demo lasted about 90 minutes, and covered many, many firsts to be caught on film.
So this presentation, named similarly to Russia’s Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device detonated on earth, had to be tight, and there was no room for error, right?
“[…]instantly responsible—responsive!” (2:30)
It happens at the 2 minute and 30 second timestamp, but Doug’s only been on camera for 52 seconds.
Four minutes in, pauses and keyboard clacking. Something we all cringe at when we do it. But, five minutes in, there’s an overhead shot of a mouse.
Doug invented the mouse.
The crowd was hanging on every word because this was, for all practical terms, a portal into the future. What people were seeing was far closer to what we all know as a computer than what came before it. To put it in perspective, Colossus: The Forbin Project was released two years after this demo. That film, a precursor to WarGames (without the catalyst of Matthew Broderick), showcased some of the most modern and impressive computers at the time, Control Data Corporation and IBM leading the charge.
The titular Colossus does not have a mouse.
Demos have always been a large part of what I do day-to-day. Being able to recite a list of features is very different than seeing something in action, and seeing is definitely believing when it comes to automation. I’ve given hundreds, if not thousands, of demos throughout my career, and I think I can count on one hand the number that went perfectly.
I developed a suite called ZeroTouch in 2011, and demos, especially in-person, were always the best way to show how much was being automated, especially when there were a lot of ambiguity in iOS device deployment back then. Being able to take a blank device and personalize it instantly before a customer’s eyes is always cooler than a few bullets on a slide, and it’s an extra bit of flair.
Flair usually presents better than code, but both have to be on point.
In a meandering way, I was also thinking about memento mori, the fabled Latin whispered to champion gladiators, best translated as “remember, thou art mortal.”
Consider us all demo-givers as gladiators—not with the grandeur, but having to please a crowd who, for the most part, have no idea what we’d done to prepare for this moment (let alone in the moment), but we’re on display. Finding ourselves in just that situation, confidence will win the day far more than confusion, and can overpower most of the worst misspeaking incidents. Don’t be afraid to be right, and don’t be afraid to be wrong. Also, don’t be afraid to not know: communicating that is more important than being right in the first place.
Every step of Doug’s presentation didn’t go exactly to plan either. If the greatest demo of all time had all the hallmarks of the ones we beat ourselves up about—vocal tics, silent moments, glitches, missed steps, incorrect slides—how bad are we?
I maintain we’re pretty good, for the most part, as long as the message leads the charge. Keeping the message at the forefront is the key to all that other stuff to not disappear, but matter a whole lot less. Someone might step up in front of a crowd, loudly and distractingly sneeze directly into the microphone, then deliver a flawless aria.
The sneeze was funny, but one moment doesn’t define a concept or conversation as a whole. A single dot of a Seurat might be a bit splattered, but the rest of the composition is still a masterpiece. Gestalt, the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, applies here as much as anywhere else.
One misstep does not define you. One misstep, a few stumbles, and communicating a compelling message, that’s a representation done right, because those things in the beginning didn’t matter.
Show to tell, but don’t tell to show. Folks will stick around when they see something cool, especially to find out how it works.
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