Last night I watched a webcast sponsored by E*Trade dealing with Asset Allocation and Market Volatility. This was partly for educational reasons and partly for professional curiosity to see how good a job they would do. Their overall score was a B-, which is a little misleading as they were either really good or really bad.

The webcast started on time (bonus point #1), and the introductory slide had pictures of the presenters (bonus point #2). However, the MC of the event and first speaker was the big boss, and Executive VP, who obviously had not rehearsed his introduction. The critical first 3 minutes of the webcast, when you establish relevance and credibility, were marred with repeated ums and errs and ahhs. Plus the speaker was droning on about market conditions etc. with no underlying graphic or visual behind him – it was still the intro slide. Finally we got to the agenda slide (full of bullets of course) , and thankfully the next speaker was more than competent and obviously prepared, despite a small technical glitch with his slides. The next speaker was excellent! He varied his voice, had interesting graphics and used plenty of analogies and stories to keep people engaged.

What can be learnt from this? Well – I’ll keep my small fortune at E*Trade, I did learn something about fixed income investing and it also reminded me that if your boss offers to start off your next presentation or meeting with a few words, find a subtle way to rehearse with him!