Re: [eclipsecon-na-program-committee] keynote suggestions

[ERIC CLONINGER <dcp874@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

WARNING: I'll apologize in advance for rambling on. If we just want to
do the typical "how much money we have and consult a speakers bureau"
approach, I'm fine with that. But, if you want an idea...

I'm on the Board of Education for our school district and we had our
annual conference. I'm required to gather a certain number of "board
points" each year and attending this conference goes a long ways to
keep my certification up. The keynotes usually involve the Executive
Director standing on stage and going through awards for teachers and
prominent board members. At some point, a motivational speaker gets up
and does their bit. We all clap appreciately, but I'm thankful that I
have a smartphone, headphones, and a dark ballroom. I'll attend a few
breakout sessions and get some useful information, but the keynotes
are painful.

This makes me appreciate the way Eclipse does things at EclipseCon.
Don't get me wrong, the "Mike and Don" show for the members meeting
has been fun, but I wouldn't want to have that as the opening keynote.
Unless beer was available.

The school conference did have one session that really worked for me.
For 2 hours, a gentleman told a series of loosely connected anecdotes
that all came together at the end for an inspirational message. Time
passed in an instant and I left wanting more. What was most important
in the end was that he didn't just stand at the podium and go through
a set of slides. He didn't need anything to keep us there other than
his voice and the gift of the storyteller. I wondered why technical
conferences couldn't be more like those last two hours. I even tweeted
about it (http://twitter.com/#!/ericcloninger/status/107148030200913920).

The answer, of course, is few of us are professional storytellers.
Some of us are bullshitters, but not necessarily storytellers. We do
our technology well, but we aren't trained to talk about it. But what
if we could learn to do it? Instead of just going through a set of
features and APIs, what if we could show how our project is saving the
lives of refugees in Somalia, creating sustainable energy, or helping
kids learn another language? The problem is our life-saving project
would still rely on a series of slides and a linear narrative, because
that's the way we're wired.

What if we had someone show the crowd how not to make your
presentations suck? Wouldn't it be great to have a whole conference
where every session was all "+1's"? I know there's a guy out there who
does a comedy schtick around Powerpoint. But I'd hate to just pick on
Powerpoint. Maybe something like we did a few years ago with Clay
Shirky and Jeff Atwood. Sort of a "You suck at Photoshop" vs.
"Powerpoint disasters" kind of routine with the goal being to get the
presenters to take a hard look at their own sessions?

Would it work or would it just piss everyone off?

-E


On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Ian Skerrett <ian.skerrett@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have started a list of potential keynote speakers for EclipseCon 2012.
> Please add any suggestions you might have to the list.
>
> Thanks
> Ian
>
> https://www.eclipsecon.org/wiki/2012_Program_Committee#Keynote_Suggestions
>
>
> --
> Ian Skerrett
> VP of Marketing and Ecosystem
> Eclipse Foundation
> Tel: 613-224-9461 ext 227
> Blog: ianskerrett.wordpress.com
> Twitter: IanSkerrett
>
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-- 
Eric Cloninger (ericc@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Product Line Manager, MOTODEV Tools
Eclipse Sequoyah Project Lead