Heads and Tails

I had two meetings today.

In the first meeting, we had a couple different people presenting portions of a slide deck. At one point I noticed one of the presenters was talking a little quickly. Not so quickly that he seemed rushed, or that I couldn't understand - but fast enough so that a)I noticed it was a faster than normal pace and b)I didn't quite have time to read the slides being displayed on the screen because I was too busy listening. Thus, while I got all the salient points of the presentation, I found myself wishing it was a little slower.

In the second meeting, I was giving a presentation to a small group of co-workers. I don't give presentations very often. I tried to be conscious of pacing and not rush my speech of ramble on. A number of times I stopped for a moment to take a breath, and let everyone catch up or ask questions if they needed to. During these times, I found the silence rather awkward and felt compelled to jump right ahead with whatever came next.

I guess the best way to put yourself in someone else's shoes is to just go ahead and lace them up.