When good demos go (very, very) bad

Normally this is not the sort of item I would post on the blog, but the specifics of this situation are both humorous and telling. Most of us have had things go kadawhompus during a demo or a training - enough so that after we laugh heartily at this screwup we can also feel pangs of sympathy for the fine people of Microsoft. Admit it -- this is funny:

At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting [last month], Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, heartfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer. The result was a disaster. Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.”