June 18, 2009 at 10:30 am
GilaMonster (6/18/2009)
...What I've found, by trial and error, works well for me is to not use speaker notes at all, to not memorise what I'm going to say and to just use the slides as a framework for what needs saying. If I have notes, I tend to semi-read them and the presentation sounds woody and stilted.
As for listening to presentations I don't want to sit and listen to a dry technical recital by someone who doesn't have a clue how to present well. I had enough of that at university. On the flip side, I also don't want to listen to someone who's doing a fantastic presentation about absolutely nothing.
That's the technique that I use. I can think of few things more boring than someone who pops up a slide and then reads it to you without expounding on the material. I generally have notes just to make sure I highlight certain points that I think need emphasis.
-----
[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
June 18, 2009 at 10:42 am
If anyone wants a place to practice, and an audience that aren't afraid to point out your faults, try doing voluntary work giving technical presentations for the IT department of the local school. It gives a new meaning to the comedian's phrase of 'nearly dying on stage'. Even now, I never turn my back on an audience.
It is also the quickest way of learning how to keep your audience interested and in a good humour.
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
June 18, 2009 at 12:57 pm
PASS does bring new speakers to the conference each year. I was in charge of the Summit Program for two years and we explicitly looked for new speakers each year. I know that the Program committee now is far ahead of what we did even two years ago. If you look through our sessions you should see a fair number of new names for both the pre/post-conference sessions and the general sessions. Spotlight speakers are selected based on great evaluations from the year before so they will all be repeats.
At any given time slot in the conference you should be able to choose between a well-known speaker that has a history of delivering great sessions and someone that you may not be familiar with but has an interesting background or topic or has delivered good sessions elsewhere such as in their chapter meetings.
If you find it difficult to choose between speakers don't forget that you can purchase a DVD of all the sessions for $95 at the time you register. Go see who you'd like and catch up on all the rest later.
If you really want to connect with Microsoft I'd encourage you to visit our Ask The Experts area (at least I think that's what we're going to call it this year). We had 300 Microsoft developers there answering questions and talking about the features they wrote. It's a great way to speak with them without the marketing folks around.
Bill Graziano
PASS Board - VP Marketing
Viewing 3 posts - 16 through 17 (of 17 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply