Make the presentation your own
Some people have asked me about the format for the keynote Tim Wagner and I delivered at EclipseCon09. For those who couldn’t attend, it can maybe be best characterized as a “play”: Tim was on stage seated at a pub table, coffee at the ready, reading the paper. I came up, Tim says something like, “Hey Kevin, good to see ya, time for our weekly chat about the keynote presentation.”, “Yeah nice that we can meet in person this time”. We then proceeded to go through the slide deck, discussing the slides with each other as if we were reviewing it.
Why this format?
Originally we had divided up the slides with him doing a few, me doing a few, switching back, etc. We wanted the presentation to be “both of us presenting”, not just one person talking for the first half, the other talking for the rest.
The day before the keynote, we did a rehearsal of the deck using that format. After, we sat and compared notes. The conversation went something like,
Kevin: “You know, that was ok, but kind of boring. We’ve been having weekly calls on this deck since November and there’s always been lots of excitement and ideas.”
Tim: “Yeah, that just didn’t come through.”
Kevin: “So why don’t we just do that?”
Tim: “Do what?”
Kevin: “Just go up on stage and chat about the slide deck like in our calls? ”
Tim: “We’re clearly well practiced at it!”
Kevin: “We can get some pub tables from the bar…”
And so on, the idea took form. I must say, points to Tim for running with such a crazy idea the day before the presentation.
What was interesting for me was how much less intimidated I suddenly felt about doing the keynote. I think it’s because it now felt more natural, more fitting of who we were and how we’d been interacting.
The lesson for me was that when you make the presentation your own, when you make it fit you (instead of you fitting the presentation), then good things flow. It certainly became a lot more fun to do! And it seemed that the audience was engaged, which really for a keynote, is the most you can hope for.
Posted May 8th, 2009 by Kevin McGuire in category: Uncategorized
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2 Responses to “Make the presentation your own”
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Ian Bull Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
It really was a great presentation and not to take away from the other keynotes, IMHO it was the best keynote I have seen at EclipseCon.
As we say on the mailings lists, +1.
Ben Vitale Says:
May 11th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Agreed, great presentation and unique format. Where can I get a copy of that screen shot that shows the “future” of IDEs? You know, the one with a bazillion views..