Well, obviously, if you’ve got children you entertain them. And if they’re troublesome children you spend much of the journey hoping it’ll soon be over and that the other people in the carriage don’t mind toooooo much…..
I’m thinking more here about what you do on a business journey. I’ve got three hours to Birmingham for a three hour workshop and then three hours train journey back again. (Assuming Virgin does what it says it’ll do!) – and that means I’ve got quite a it of research time to find out.
Seems to me that about half the people here are either eating/drinking or sleeping (and one guy at the end of the carriage appears to have started the latter with the contents of the former still in his (open) mouth… delightful.
Of those who are still in the real world, many are reading, some are speaking past their mobile phones and a few are putting together presentations. I say that some are speaking past the mobile phones rather than “using” them because the volume they appear to prefer suggests that they’re using the phones as a prop only and are actually speaking directly to their offices, without bothering to use the technology.
Obviously, given what I do for a living, I’m more interested in the people writing their presentations on the train. Let me give you some advice here…. don’t. Only a real expert can do that kind of thing – and of course, you’d not find such a person trying it in the first place!
For a start, you can only really check the timing of a presentation by delivering out loud. If you do that on the train you’ll find it a really handy way of keeping the seat next to you empty, so I wonder it might be a good idea after all…. By all means tweak and check your spellings but don’t write what you’re about to deliver.
Image by aussiegall via Flickr
I read a tweet recently from someone saying they’d written, timed and rehearsed their presentation. Great I thought, someone who listens to me and does those things – until I noticed that it was only 20 minutes from their last tweet saying they were going to start doing them. Given that the presentation was supposed to last 20 minutes I was a little surprised, as you can imagine. Short of getting the services of a friendly Time Lord, I’m not sure how you do that. Answers on a postcard, please…..
Practicing in your head doesn’t work. Well, okay, it does, but not to figure out two critical things
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how long a presentation will last when it’s delivered ‘in anger’
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what about it won’t work in terms of the realities of it, not the ideas of it.
Maybe it’s just me being fussy, but I prefer not to stand up to deliver without knowing those things…! 
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