​

Hey there,
​

There are two kinds of people. Those who plan and those who wing it. In the last week alone, I’ve had three different conversations about how to handle the “just in time” nature of events. The growing trend: everything content-related (if not printed) is “changeable” right up until the event starts.

Let’s talk executive presentations....the keynote sessions of most conferences.

Once upon a time, decks were locked weeks in advance. Content was drafted, scrubbed by legal and comms, then sent to the agency to finalize. (Yes, back when “slides” actually meant slides.)

Then came the age of PowerPoint. We set cut-off dates so production teams could design, check, program, and load content into systems onsite. The final step: rehearse and deliver. Deadlines mattered.

Fast forward to today. Many companies do it the “Google way”: shared decks that evolve right up until the walk-on music. Content can technically be updated until the second before going onstage.

Here’s the duality:

• Just-in-time = the most up-to-date, thought-through content.
• Locked & loaded = polished, tested, and reliable execution.

Continual optimization can burn out teams, overload resources, and trigger last-minute errors. Locking too early can stifle relevance and agility.

So, how do we build events with empathy for both sides?
🛑 Set two deadlines: a “content freeze” and a “polish window.”
👥 Align on risk tolerance, make the tradeoffs explicit.
💻 Use cloud tools for collaboration, but establish at least a 12-hour freeze for a stable offline show version.
💩 Stop buttering turds. At some point, the real polish is in the delivery, not another edit.

Here’s the lesson: Agility and certainty aren’t opposites....they’re points on a spectrum. At the project kick-off, define where you sit, what it costs, and how you’ll manage it before the show begins.

At the end of the day, the audience doesn’t care how many edits you made; they care how you made them feel on stage.

Keep thinking, keep winking,
— Denise

​Twofold Story: Helping you build journeys, not agendas.

​
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​