Keith’s Amusing Musings

Chris Simpkins, a web developer from Rhode Island, was in the audience for my Web Application UI session here at ASP.NET Connections and he captured a short video clip from the tail-end of my session.  Chris contacted me via my work blog to share some positive feedback from my session.

Chris also included a link to his blog, Mills’ Place, where you can read about a variety of goings-on in Chris’ life including the mileage on his car, his dog and his exploits as a credit-card-carrying young urban professional.

One thing I noticed from the video is I am talking way too fast.  I blame that on me hurrying to finish my session since I was already in overtime.

Thanks for sharing, Chris!

I arrived in Orlando for the DevConnections conferences on Saturday evening to present two breakout sessions at ASP.NET Connections, one on ASP.NET 2.0 and one on Visual Studio Team System.  The conferences started with a joint keynote on Sunday evening which covered ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005.  Monday was slated as “Microsoft Day” which is when all the sessions presented by Microsoft employees were scheduled to occur.  The remaining sessions for the conference were spread across subsequent days through Wednesday afternoon.

I presented on the following topics yesterday:

• Web Application UI Integrating Master Pages, Site Navigation and Themes (10:45AM-11:45AM…just before lunch)
• Using Visual Studio Team System to Build Enterprise ASP.NET Applications (1:30PM-2:30PM…just after lunch)

This was my first time presenting at a conference so I spent a lot of time Friday-Sunday working on my slides, practicing my demos and practicing speaking to a large audience (intonation, projection, pace, inflection, enunciation, etc.)  I also brainstormed a few jokes (in the event my demos crashed) and anecdotes (to keep the crowd engaged).

For my first time presenting, I think the sessions went well.  The biggest disappointment for me was I went over ~10 minutes in each of my sessions.  I was more worried about not having enough to say to fill an hour and was surprised when I saw I would need to exceed the allotted time for my first session.  I was utterly shocked when I saw I was going over in the second session as well — TB has always said I am too verbose.  The irony of all this, considering entry #1 on my list assessing “marketing types” after my first month on the job, certainly isn’t lost on me as I approach Month Four.  The ”endeavoring to find out” will begin closer to home than I expected.

Lesson Learned: Practice runs with a clock are essential to finishing on time.

The good news is just about all of the ~200 attendees in my first session and ~100 in my second session stayed around to hear what I had to say despite my running over.  TB says that was a good sign especially for the session just before lunch.  She thinks the audience would have left if I was boring or doing a terrible job.  Perhaps they were just being polite. :sarcastic:

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