Transcript

So one really excellent demonstration event that I attended was very well-balanced. The day started off with an overview of the project, an introduction, just to provide a little bit more context and a clear setting for the rest of the day's activities. The next part of the event took us outside, so we actually got to see the drones up close. We got to watch their flight and watch the whole sort of process of the preparation that goes into it, as well as a bit of the flying, and to see the type of environment that they really work in. The rest of the day also gave us a chance to discuss and learn a little bit more and go into more detail about the solutions that were being developed. The most important thing to consider when preparing a demonstration event is what is the goal or what is the outcome of the demonstration event. Is it to try and gain more funding? Is it to try and influence policy-makers? Is it to try and engage with end-users? The most important thing is to think about what do you as the demonstrator want to take away, but also what do you want your audience to take away. Another important aspect of preparing a demonstration event is the target audience. Who are they, and what do they want to take away from the event? The first thing to avoid when preparing a demonstration event is not having a clear objective and a clear takeaway message. It's really important that the participants are able to leave at the end of the day with something, what they learned, what they can look forward to, but they really need to have a clear message. Another thing to avoid when preparing a demonstration event is to keep people in their seats. If you're going to be attending a demo event, the expectation is that there's going to be a level of engagement, that you're going to see something, that there might be even a hands-on element. But the last thing you want to do is just keep people in their seats and lecture them. So you want to make sure, yeah, it's a really kind of engaging event. The final thing to avoid is poor time management. The last thing you want is for your event to drag on, for people to slowly trickle out and to lose interest. People need to know when the event starts, what is the programme, and you want to do your best to stick to it.