Demos and Cooking Shows Part 3: Time Warping!

How long does it take to roast a turkey? Can you imagine a cooking show that made you wait hours to see the completely roasted bird? Nope!

 

Instead, they cook one turkey ahead of time and leave it in a warming oven. They have a second uncooked turkey that they’ll use to demonstrate the process during the show.

 

Cooking show chefs often use two ovens or pots/pans and prepare two instances of the recipe to warp time. They start their show by presenting the mouth-watering, beautifully plated, completed dish to engage the audience and generate interest to learn more. That’s the pre-prepared bird in our example.

 

Next, the chef walks through the cooking process’ key steps. For a turkey, they clean, season, and stuff the bird using pre-prepped ingredients, then slide it into an oven. They finish the show by pulling the already cooked turkey from the oven, plate it and enjoy!

 

You can apply the same idea in demos that have very long workflows or kick off processes that take a substantial amount of time to complete. Show the completed process and/or deliverables first. Then start the long workflow, but don’t follow it to completion. Just show enough for your audience to get the gist of what is involved. Finish by jumping to the end and show the completed process or deliverables again. Let your audience decide if they want to see more details.

 

It’s a very effective approach: It’s like cooking two birds with one demo!

 

You’ll find many more pragmatic tips and practices in Great Demo!