I believe DDD was a great success, and hats of to Guy, Zi, Phil, Craig etc, for organising a great day.
Unfortunately, I must apologise for my sessions. I am highly disappointed in myself, as I know I can present around 1000 times better than i did.
If you attended any of my 2 sessions, I will post up my samples later on today. On a positive note, my samples are good.
I will be critically evaluating, what went wrong for me on the day, and how I will be resolving this in the future for later sessions.
I have learned a lot of lessons, and these sessions were my first ever one hour sessions, and this was my first time presenting at a conference. I do not offer this as an excuse, but just as a contributing factor. The blame lies purely with myself and my lack of experience is just a factor.
For those of you who attended my sessions, i thank you for turning up, and putting up with me. In the future i will resolve these issues (to be posted later), and I know that in my future sessions, I will be giving much better presentations.
Again thanks for coming to my session, and thanks to the guys at DDD (especially Guy Smith-Ferrier, who is an outstanding bloke, a real inspiration, and a real champion for developing UK speakers).
Let the critical evaluation begin........
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My ramblings in Silverlight, Windows Azure, .NET, ASP.NET, C# (all the way from the UK) A little place where i can store the snippets of information, which usually get lost in my tiny little brain, and will now forever remain enshrined in the google archives forever.
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7 comments:
Chris,
Good for you for openly reflecting on your DDD session, but don't beat yourself up too much. I came to both sessions (and spoke to you outside after the second one) and I enjoyed them both.
I think you've got a very engaging personality for presenting and if some of the technical aspects (of presenting) could do with improvement, then they're probably the easy things to fix.
For myself, I found some of what you presented difficult to follow due to the speed with which you moved between windows. I guess having less folders in the VS solution explorer would help to know what I was looking at and some longer pauses in between points would help my slow old head to digest what you've just said.
Anyway, these are just technical details that anyone can fix. Your main asset is you and I would definitely come and see you at the next DDD, if not before.
Best regards
John
Thanks John,
I appreciate your comments. In the 10-20 minute slots, I have done at NxtGenUG user group meetings, I have had very high ratings and have been very happy with my presentations. On those occasions I have posted my ratings, and my thoughts, and I feel it is important to say when it has gone wrong (not just when it goes right)
The reason I am so disappointed is that i know I am capable of so much more. However I have learned some real lessons, and it is important for me to blog those lessons, so i never make the same mistakes again.
I will sort it out, and as the governor of California once said, "I'll be back". It might take me a few further sessions to sort out the technicalities of presenting, and getting the structure right, but I will make sure i never go into a session tired and unenthusiastic, ever again.
On a final point, I need to beat myself up over it. You guy's have given up a saturday to see some presentations, the least i can do is give my best.
I didn't do that, and for that I am truly sorry. There are reasons I didn't give my best, and for me a lot of them is due to the learning experience (i have only been presenting for 2 months, and these were my first 1 hour presentations). I can't however excuse myself for being tired, and unenthusiastic.
Chris,
Too hard on yourself. Much too hard. DDD is an opportunity for people to get experience like this. What everyone who hasn't seen your nuggets at NxtGen doesn't know is that you can present really well. These ones didn't go as well as you are capable of doing but people will see the real you at DDD at some point - hopefully at DDD7.
Good luck to you, Chris. It's a great learning experience and we both know that this wasn't a true representation of you.
Guy
Thanks Guy for the kind words.
It might seem like I am being too hard on myself, but really I am just being honest.
I am going through a process of capturing what happened, and then will systematically work on these points, until I have a great preparation method worked out.
Eventually, I will have a method of consistenly providing great presentations.
I will be back at a future DDD, I will submit a session for DDD7(whether it gets voted for is it a different matter).
I will be spending some lonely nights with a laptop, and a projector.
I will continue on the user group circuit, and eventually I will be able to deliver the type of presention that i am happy with (consistently).
I absolutely appreciate the experience of this weekend. Sometimes the best experiences are not the most enjoyable however.
If anybody is in Southampton in January (for my Silverlight session at NxtGenUG), prepare to blinded, as I can guarantee that will be my best presentation to date.
With this kind of determination I don't doubt that you will succeed. Good luck in January.
Chris,
I've just read this post and comments and your evaluation of went wrong with both sessions. I attented both these sessions and enjoyed them equally.
Your'e right, the second presentation did feel a little rushed. However, this is the first time (and i'm sure this is true of many people attending) that we were shown what silver light is capable of in the real world. This wasnt a sales pitch and that was clear and very much appreciated.
I for one would like to thank you for both sessions. They were both extremely useful and i would certainly come and see you speak again.
Best wishes
Dave
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