Re: presenting...

Well, as a first time IOUG presenter this year, I'm probably way under-qualified to address this questions, but here goes anyway.

I've attended presentations that were so-so content-wise, but the quality of the speaker made it enjoyable. I've been in presentations that were top-shelf content-wise but were presented by a speaker that was either new or not as polished as some and I enjoyed them for the content. The best ones are the ones that have both. I realized about 8 years ago that my career would be made or broken based not on technical skills, but on my ability to communicate to other people in both technical and non-technical realms. I was deathly afraid of public speaking so I joined Toastmasters. Through their program I was able to learn some skills required for presenting as well as practice speaking in a supportive environment. Even still, I get butterflies before starting a presentation or public speech (I've presented several times at my local user group). To some degree those butterflies are good since they give you a certain degree of excitement about the topic. I've attended presentations where the speaker not only knew everything about a topic, but was bored with it and that is a very bad way to spend any length of time. I had my presentation done in time so that I presented it at my local user group and used the feedback from the 20 or so people there to enhance it. I also practiced presenting one last time about two hours before my time slot so that everything was fresh.

If you have ideas (and I know you do), pick one that interests you and prepare a presentation for a smaller gathering (local user group or company group). That will give you practice and feedback to polish it for a bigger conference. Now if you want more help preparing, find a Toastmasters in your area (www.toastmasters.org). Even if the members of your club aren't in your line of work, they can help you polish your presentation in terms of flow, pace, visuals, etc.

Good luck & hope to see you present soon. Stephen, former Toastmasters member

>>> messydba_at_yahoo.com 05/07/03 10:26AM >>>
OK, i've been told by several people [i do question their sanuty.;-)] that i should present at one of these conference things.

so, from you experienced presenters, what's the precedure? any tips? am i totally insane? [OK don't answer that last one.;-)]

--
Bill "Shrek" Thater              non-OCP ORACLE DBA
             messydba_at_yahoo.com 
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