The you choose nugget in Coventry

So I did a nugget in Coventry on Monday night for NxtGenUG. Thanks to Rich for letting me do this nugget.

I think this was my most challenging nugget to date. I had agreed to let the audience choose the nugget they wish to hear the most about any of the new C#3.0 language features and how they work at an IL level.

Not only did I have to prepare 6 nuggets, and only present one, but the presentation skills speaker was on after me. I was more nervous about this nugget, than DDD.

At the end of the night, I was really happy with the way i presented, and the speaker guy was absolutely amazing, and I have learned so much from him, and I am sure DDD will go so much better for it. He was really complimentry, and in the end I am happy and confident about speaking. Unfortunately I wasn't so happy with the subject in the end. I think it was a mistake to let the audience choose the nugget, however it was a great challenge to do so. I guess if you voted for another nugget, you wouldn't be happy that i presented a different one.

I also think the subject was to deep to be doing as a nugget for a user group evening. I think in future, I will keep this as an entire session, which allows me to tackle it (with questions), at a reasonable pace.

However saying that, I was suprised that the feedback (so far) is really good considering.

5x9's
6x8's
3x7's
1x6

Comments:
"great nugget - under a lot of pressure brave man - well done."

"Good stuff on the wrong night. I'm not sure I like to be asked which nugget I want - just feed me the nugget please."

"Enthused, indiviual brave and wears's a loud beach shirt to boot, now that's a guy you want at your next party talking about computers."

"Chris did extremely well to do a nugget off the fly, and managed to give a succinct and clear overview of lambda expressions in a very short space of time. Well done."

"The presentation chris provided was extremely good and interesting to see what is actually going on behind the scenes."

"Well prepared and presented."

"Sorry, just caught the last few minutes of the nugget, but liked what I saw - well done!"

"Very enthusiastic but a bit rushed; Nice shirt!"

" thought the point was being demonstrated (i.e. CLR has not changed) was covered quite well, but the 'show the IL or #1 then for #2' didn't really work so well. It would have been a little better if there were a way to see the IL side-by-side. I accept that the IL is the same, but it wasn't really possible to confirm that with your own eyes as #1 was removed from sight to show #2."

Some really great comments, very constructive, and will really help me improve my sessions. I have only been speaking for 2 months now, so this is really helping me find my style, groove, and preparations.

Thanks again to all the guys in Coventry for being brilliant.