I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina for a presentation. I’m co-teaching a CLE program with Erik Mazzone. The program is sponsored by Lawyers Mutual Liability of North Carolina. They do these programs annually for the benefit of their insureds.

We’re doing a “60 Tips in 60 Minutes” program on practice management and tools. This is our third of six presentations of the same program. Teaching at CLE programs is the perfect way to build your practice. You’re positioned as the expert and you’re exposed to a crowd.

I’ve learned several lessons, so far, in doing this program that I’ll pass along.

First, co-presenting is so much easier than presenting by yourself. I love that we can regroup for a moment while the other is speaking and that we can interact with one another to mix things up a bit.

Second, doing the program repeatedly allows us to improve each time. We’ve been debriefing after each presentation and dropping some of the tips and inserting others. We’ve been watching the audience. Some tips get a laugh, some stimulate note taking and some draw a yawn. We act accordingly. It’s increasingly clear to me how professional speakers, repeatedly delivering the same program, are able to refine a presentation so that it’s entertaining, informative and delivered with a casual style.

Third, the 60 tips format is fantastic. We each take a turn going for 60 seconds, back and forth. If someone in the audience doesn’t like our tip they won’t have to wait long for the next one. It’s hard for them to drift off. This is seriously fast paced. Our segment stands in stark contrast to the hour long lectures being delivered by other speakers here.

Fourth, we’ve got to insert something funny about every 6 minutes. It doesn’t have to be hysterical, just funny. Ideally, it relates to something educational. A good example is our demo of Google Maps. It features a street view of Bernie Madoff’s townhouse in Manhattan and his new home in North Carolina (a correctional center). We do, however, get away with a few tips that are purely amusing and have no educational content (i.e. Fail Blog). No one seems to mind 60 seconds of pure funny.

Fifth, excellent Microsoft Powerpoint/Keynote slides make a big difference, especially for a program featuring a bunch of technology tips. We put together a deck featuring demos of websites and some static pictures. There are no words on the visuals. Obviously, a presentation discussing websites requires visuals to be effective.

Sixth, using recorded screencasts of websites is far more reliable than trying to show websites using a live internet connection. We’ve tried doing these presentations while hooked up to the internet. Doing it live is tough. Between failed internet connections, websites being down and computers freezing up, the risk of disaster is unacceptably high.

Seventh, it’s important to get to the venue early and get set up. We’ve been using the exact same hardware in each location and had different issues in each place. Getting there early allows us the time we need work out the glitches without stressing out right before we start.

Eighth, free, sponsored CLE is a great idea. It’s a win for the sponsor and for the audience. These programs are paid for by the insurance company and the crowds have been huge. We’re even repeating the program twice in one day to accommodate the crowd in one city. I suspect we’ll all be getting our CLE for free one day as the sponsors figure out what a great way it is to get in front of potential customers. I’m tired of paying $350 for a program and I bet you are too.

This series has been a wonderful experience so far. I’ll be on the lookout for other tips as we move through the final few presentations over the next couple of weeks.