Northern Voice Microblogging Presentation Debrief

Here are the notes I took of a self-debrief about my Northern Voice presentation last month about microblogging. I follow most of the advice Joe Clark gives about giving presentations and agree with all of it. Every presentation, including this one, I close anything that makes a unanticipated notification or unwanted sound, load up every website I intent to show in a tab well before the presentation. I don't do this often enough in a year to get smooth at it. Presumably Bruce Sharpe, who presented directly before me, will post video and/or audio of my presentation in the near future.

What Went Right

  • definitely had enough material for half an hour. I went halfway through my slides. Perfect, since the presentation was front-loaded to the first half. The second half contained bonus material.
  • I kept it conversational, let people interrupt, and with maybe one exception, felt that I answered questions relatively well
  • people seemed to like the presentation
  • the attendees laughed at the right places

What Went Wrong

  • I needed a projector adapter dongle thing, leaving it at home. Luckily I borrowed the previous presenter's dongle. I try to have my own.
  • I needed the remote, which I lost sometime before the presentation. Managing without it, it would have went far more smoothly allowing me to go beyond the reach of my laptop.
  • I didn't get to use the Obligatory Obama Slide (though I was unprepared for it)
  • felt underprepared, not having done a proper run-through. Nobody seemed to notice.
  • had the wrong setting on the laptop's monitor, not being able to see my speaking notes (which weren't detailed) and a timer
  • I wore a sweater. The conference documentarians used apel mikes. Next time I won't wear a sweater.

What I Noticed, for Ill or Good

  • when I made an unsubstantiated claim that between 11 AM and 4 PM is the best time to post an update to Twitter, several people in the audience wrote it down. That makes me think of what other unsubstantiated thing I can say that people.- one person came up to talk to me about it afterwards
  • one person came up to me after the presentation to talk about it more. I had no expectations either way.
  • at least 15 people started following me on Twitter after I put up my first slide, which had only my Twitter username identifying me. Many have since unfollowed.

Comments

My stats for Edmonton show that 11 AM to 4 PM is the busiest time of day on Twitter. So that means if you post during that time, you have the potential to reach more people. It also means that there's a greater chance your tweet will get lost in the stream! Anyway, good job Richard.

Truth be known, I got the stat from Greg said on his Twitter stream, which he noted without citation. Good to know there's someone who actually crunches the numbers on these things!