People in our industry like to talk about ‘Real-world Systems’ or sometimes say, of course in the real world.
Yeah, right. If computer systems were the real world, they would have to visit a bank on three seperate occasions just to get some old statement reprints; have to spend a couple of hundred quid on a replacement windscreen because of a stone; or go to three hairdressers to find them all booked up. On a Wednesday morning?
My day of errand running plus a little time to check my presentation has turned into errand-running to no great effect 😉 Good job I have no work to do on the presentation. Well, until I read this in Mark Rittman’s blog.
“I’ve done this myself actually – the OLAP tuning presentation I gave at the Desktop Conference was pretty much a highlights package for the accompanying paper, but without the paper to hand, you just end up skimming over things that people aren’t all that familiar with, just keep referring to thing that you then don’t properly explain and demonstrate. What I learnt from that, and I think this would have been good advice for the speaker, would be to cut right down the amount of things you cover, but then for the things that are left, demonstrate it, explain it, don’t just refer people to the paper. I kept thinking during the talk – “show me, don’t just tell me” and I think in the end, the guy probably had an excellent paper, but you’ve got to do it a bit different for the talk, it’s a different type of communication.”
(Demonstrate it? Explain it? That sounds familiar)
You know, he’s right, up to a point. This is what’s been bothering me about the slaves presentation. It’s based on a big paper and so it’s difficult to decide what to include. I never expected or tried to include everything, but deciding what to leave out can be a tricky business if you’re too close to the paper. I felt I got it a little wrong at Hotsos 2006 but when I looked at it this week, I thought it looked okay. Now I’ve changed my mind again 😉 The good thing is that I know the whole paper so well and have given the presentation before, so I still have some time to fine-tune it. I would have even more time if I hadn’t promised to eat and drink with a bunch of alcoholic geeks, but it would be simply rude of me to turn them down now. I only hope they know that Barcelona vs. AC Milan is not optional.
So I might end up looking like I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge, but I think the presentation should be okay. Even if it’s not, there’ll be plenty of interesting presentations for me to attend anyway. I’m gutted that I’m going to miss Niall’s Windows/Linux presentation because I’ll be speaking at the same time, but I expect I’ll see it in Birmingham later this year.
Well, I’d better start getting my act together to go to the airport.
“promised to eat and drink with a bunch of alcoholic geeks”
Thanks!
“I only hope they know that Barcelona vs. AC Milan is not optional.”
After that last comment Matey, you must be joking – we’ll be too busy getting drunk and talking about computers!
🙂
50 minutes to respond. Mmmmm, I thought it might be quicker 😉
errm, shouldn’t that read
I would have had even more time if I hadn’t personally arranged a meet for food and drink on the previous evening and I can hardly pull out of something I’ve arranged.
I’m with you on the footie though 🙂
Oh and my test results for the windows/linux thing are just way wrong, repeatable but wrong. Bother.
have a good time tonight. I won’t be thinking of you when I get up at 5am tomorrow.
I think the key point of Marks’ observation was “without the paper to hand”. Hotsos attendees had the option at least of getting very extensive printed notes that included white papers on which many of the presentations were based, and that worked well for me (because I’m not cheap. Well, not so cheap that if I’m going to pay for a symposium, flights, hotel and give up paid work then I’m going to skimp on $50, anyway). I would rather have a white paper to hand and have someone extract and discuss the key points from it for an hour because I’m actually getting much more than an hour’s worth of information – in some cases I understand that people even read these papers while on long-haul airplanes, if you can imagine such a thing.
On the other hand there are times where there are a very few important concepts to get across, and that can be done in an hour with a demonstration or two, but those situations are much more rare, and in fact the presentation is often not adding much more than could be written on a single sheet of paper (sans demos of course).
Anyway, I thought that the Px paper was a good example of discussing the high points of a complex subject. It’s not a subject on which I think one can just pronounce “here are some simple rules to follow to make your life better” — it’s much more nuanced than that and relies on individual experimentation following a set of practices that the paper laid out very well.
In other words, I think your approach worked.
Niall said,
” errm, shouldn’t that read
I would have had even more time if I hadn’t personally arranged a meet for food and drink on the previous evening and I can hardly pull out of something I’ve arranged.”
Oh, I *suppose* so …
“I won’t be thinking of you when I get up at 5am tomorrow.”
Funnily enough, I wasn’t thinking of you at 5am either!
David said
I’ll reply properly later, but …
“In other words, I think your approach worked.”
Thanks for that.
I’ll just tell them the Sponge said it would be okay 😉
>> I’ll just tell them the Sponge said it would be okay
That’s the gold seal of approval, you know 😄