Sep 05 2007
The Orlando Experiment: Two Part Presentations
In earlier post I wrote about being selected as a speaker for the conference again this year. As I generally do I submitted about a half dozen ideas, of which two were accepted. As it turns out, there was an ulterior motive in place. I didn’t get two abstracts selected, but something different altogether.
The folks that manage the conference have always seemed to me to have been receptive to suggestions and creative input as to how to make the conference better. This fall they are going to introduce some “double-feature” presentations. I have seen comments in my conference feedback forms before about letting speakers go into more detail by allocating more time, and it seems that some folks will be given that opportunity this year. My presentation — Tales From a Universe Ninja — will be a two-part presentation.
They accepted two abstracts because their system doesn’t currently provide for a two-part presentation, and obviously I had not submitted a two-part presentation. By accepting two different abstracts they reserved two slots. Ultimately the second topic didn’t really matter because they intended to stretch the first one into two parts.
What does this mean? It means that I will be given two presentation slots that run back-to-back, and the ability to carry one topic over two hours instead of just one. Instead of three or four designer techniques I can cover more. Two times the time allowed, two times the content…
And two times the bad jokes. You have been warned. 😛
Good luck…I can almost hear the awful martial arts-based jokes now…
There is already one in the abstract… 😆
I’ll be anxiously waiting for your presentation:). I have read most of your presentations on Integra’s website and this year I’ll have a chance to hear you and your bad jokes live. 😉 BTW, do you know if BOBJ has announced the schedule for who is presenting when? Last conference they had something on their website but for this one I haven’t seen anything yet.
If it’s not announced yet, it should be out shortly. I have been asked if I would present twice this year. The updated abstracts are listed on the user conference web site, but I don’t see the ability to set up a personalized schedule yet. I suspect that I will be speaking once on Tuesday and again on Thursday, but that is just a guess. There are a bunch of presentations by various Integra folks this year, so I will be easy to find. 8)
I can’t remember the jokes, but there was one year where you had a “Dave” bus and lots of references to other Daves.
It was the Partridge Family bus with David Cassidy. Also talked about David and Goliath and “The ‘Hoff” as in David Hasselhoff. I think that was in Vegas in 2001. 😎
Dave your presentations are extremely good. I will be waiting for your presentations it is a very good learning from the presentations.It helped me a lot.
I will be attending this year’s conference and signed up for one of the “Universe Ninja” presentations. I’ve only heard good things about them. Also, I guess your jokes are notorious so I am getting ready for those also.
Ahh, the pressure! 😯
I have barely had time to get my presentations done, so any humorous material may have to wait until the last minute. There is one reviewer (anonymous) that has said in the past few years something along the lines of:
He (or she) is probably right. 😉
Dave
Add me to the long list of your Business Objects “groupies”! You are the RockStar of Business Objects Users Conference! I saw two guys scalping tickets to your presentation last year in San Francisco. They were getting $50 for seats down front! I paid $25 for nose-bleeds in the back!!!
All of your Coonference presentations do have a consistent theme and flow to them which is nicely polished. I’ve actually found this to be true of the presentations delivered by all of Integra’s consultants. Your delivery is pretty natural because you know the subject matter pretty well and the presentations seem spontaneous instead of rehearsed.
The jokes are OK for the most part and it does make for some light moments on what can sometimes be a dry subject matter. I won’t be buying the DVD box set of all your Conference presentations any time soon but I should copyright this idea before Business Objects determines that it is a new revenue source!
Mike McErlain