First Desktop Conference 2006 Presentation
February 21st, 2006 by Mark Rittman
Well I’ve just finished my first presentation for the Desktop Virtual
Conference 2006, on XML Publisher. It was a bit strange presenting it actually,
there’s no feedback during the session from the audience and no visual clues as
to whether you’re doing OK or not. At the start of the talk I told the organiser
to open up the voice channels so that people could comment during the talk, but
I didn’t hear anything and it was all a bit strange. It takes you a while to get
used to the idea of presenting to your laptop with no-one else in the room,
after about 10 minutes I kind of relaxed and got into my normal "presenting
stride". There were a few names I recognised in the delegate list – Nick
Goodman, Lewis Cunningham, Toon Koppelaars, but after you start presenting you
can’t really see who’s joined or who’s still there as Powerpoint is maximised
out. Next time I’ll keep the "Web Conferencing" console on the screen rather
than have it auto-hide when doing the talk.
It was a bit of a shaky start to the talk, I had to wait until about 15
minutes after the start time before I could talk as there were a few technical
difficulties. I was pleased though that the technology worked from my end – I
dialled in to the voice line number using Skype and a headset on my laptop,
which was connected to the internet using a 802.11g wireless connection. I’ve
got a 2Mb DSL line from the house and it seemed to hold up fairly well. I was on
the phone for about 90 minutes and my biggest fear was the call cutting out and
then having to negotiate the reconnection process, which seemed a bit
longwinded.
Anyway, if you listened in, give me some feedback as I’m on again tomorrow
with Oracle Database 10g OLAP Best Practices. If you’re on later (Nick, Lewis)
good luck and I’ll listen in.
February 21st, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Mark,
I think you did really well. It seems to me you are very comfortable presenting.
What I did during my presentation was run my laptops next to each other. One laptop was connected with me as a presenter and the other was connected with me as an attendee. That way I could see what everyone else saw.
It didn’t help with feedback but it did give me a warm fuzzy that the presentation looked ok.
Thanks,
LewisC
February 21st, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Thanks Lewis. Good idea about the other laptop, I’ll connect my PC up tomorrow so I can see what’s going on. Great idea.
cheers
Mark
p.s. Sorry I couldn’t attend yours for longer. I was trying to connect up so that I could check it was all working, then I had to put the kids to bed…
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:09 am
Hey Mark.
I had the chance to listen in to your presentation today. It seemed like you were a little nervous to start (you had a slight case of the “um’s”.. but who doesn’t when giving a presentation), but once you got into the presentation, you really did well. All in all, I found the presentation very good and informative. Another minor commment.. on my end the sound became garbled when you would stop talking for a little while and then start up again. I imagine this is a function of connecting through Skype. It wasn’t too much to be a distraction, just thought I would let you know a few words got lost here and there.
Also, as for your idea of having all lines open for comments during the whole discussion.. I am not sure that this is such a good idea. Although it is nice to be able to ask a question at the time it is relevant, there is a downside. It didn’t happen during your presentation (I am guessing all lines weren’t really open) but in another session I was in, the lines were open, and nobody asked questions during the presentation. Even worse, not everyone had muted their phone, so you could hear background noise, side conversations, laughing, etc. throughout the presentation. It was much more distracting than I believe it would be beneficial.
All in all, I am enjoying the conference. Keep up the good work, and although I won’t be able to listen in to your presentation tomorrow, for those who can attend, I hope it is as good as today’s.
cmartin2
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 am
Presentation was excellent. I realized during your presentation that it’s MUCH less interactive than in person conferences. There’s ZERO feedback from audience so it’s kind of tough that way. I was quite enjoying it, but how can a presenter see that through a computer?
Was great… I look forward at having a go at XMLP if I get a spare moment or customer wanting to have a go at it.
Cheers Mark!