Speaking Advice

From a Pluralsight author, there’s a difference between talking and teaching.

Overall I think it’s good. I try to keep some of these points in mind when I talk, though I haven’t always kept the agenda slides in. I’ve tried them in a few places, and I like them for pacing myself and transitioning things. It also reminds me to ask for questions.

I completely agree that “You probably already know this” is poor technique, whether writing or speaking. Don’t assume people know something, and if you have doubts, ask.

Speaking well takes practice, as much for your delivery, as for the comfort you get after lots of talks. The better you feel, the better your talk will be for the audience.

Speaking - Slide Design

I’m not sure I love this advice on slide design, but some of it makes sense. Much too often I see people putting lots of information on slide decks, as though readers will be studying the slides. I am working to reduce the amount of letters or “data” on each slide, and increase the information by making things simpler and hoping people will pay attention to me.

I do think that larger fonts are important, and I like the idea of color. I hate animations, and prefer to either have everything on the slide at once, or use multiple slides to highlight some change. The changes I highlight, however, are usually images that change rather than words.

Branding Yourself in New Mexico

I'll be delivering my Branding Yourself for a Dream Job presentation in New Mexico at SQL Saturday #183 on Feburary 9, 2013.

Register and come if you're in the area.

Branding Yourself Talk in Denver

I'll be delivering my Branding talk at SQL Saturday #169 in Denver, CO on Sept 22, 2012. This event is being held at he Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church near Cherry Creek State Park.

I'm scheduled for 11:15, and the event is free, so come by if you can.

Get Inspired - SQL Inspire 2011 New York

Coming up next week is the SQL Inspire 2011 event in New York City. It’s an event with a number of SQL Server community speakers that are here to inspire you in your career, your life, and with SQL Server. The talks cover a variety of topics, and they look interesting. I am very excited to attend the event, and give my talk as well.

The event is from SQL People, the brainchild of Andy Leonard and Brian Moran, designed to build a stronger community by having us inspire each other. This event is based on the TED events, which are inspirational and informative talks that look to explore new ideas in a variety of topic areas. I have loved watching many of the talks, and while I’m not sure I’m up to the same level of presenting as many of these people, I’m going to try.

Please come if you are in New York on the 12th of November. It will be a lot of fun, and hopefully a very motivational event.

The Long Road

I gave a keynote talk recently called The Long Road, where I talked about the journey of your career and how you might not end up in the place you expect to be, but that's OK. Modify your career goals as you go.

The PASS 2011 Summit

I haven't posted awhile, with this being a busy conference time and I've been working on a few other presentations. I need to get back to posting here, and I have a few drafts in progress, just lacking some time.

I'll be delivering a version of this talk at the 2011 PASS Summit, titling it Branding Yourself for a Dream Job: The Modern Resume.

It's the same talk, or nearly the same, but a different title based on some feedback from various people that were turned off by the idea of "working on their resume."

We will see how it goes, but I would welcome feedback if you are attending the event.

SQL Saturday #63 PPT

The PowerPoint deck from my presentation is here if you want it

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Presentations/70959/


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tips for Speaking

I've read a few books on speaking, and looked to get feedback from people on what I can do better in my talks. I've learned things, and I think I've improved over time, but there are always ways to get better. I've considered Toastmasters, but time is precious for me right now and that's a night that I can't spare in the coming months. However I do want to get there at some point and have some practice talks.

Recently I saw a great post at The Goal Keeping DBA, from Brian Kelley called Tip on Speaking (and Writing) Well – The Key Idea. It's actually based on a Toastmasters article that Brian has distilled down. He has some great advice on speaking, or writing, and it's worth reading.

It's also similar to the advice I often give authors as an editor. Focus on something and do that well.

World Wide Tech Day

I just finished my presentation for World Wide Tech Day 2010. I did The Modern Resume, and I think it went well. My timing was OK, finishing right at the 0:55 mark. The presentation is really more of a 75 minute one, but I ran a little quick over Livemeeting, without many questions and without the visual feedback, it’s easy to go a bit quicker.

They had asked me to do this in August, and I agreed, saving this day, and here it was.

Now I need another beer to relax the throat.

Vote for me at the SQL Rally

I submitted a pre-conference seminary proposal along with Chris Shaw to the SQL Rally event that is taking place in May of 2011. Our proposal is a half day pre-con, likely costing around $50-70, in which we'll talk about how you can find your dream job.

You can vote for me here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BD59JCQBT

The process is interesting in that a committee reviewed the proposals and then the ones approved were put out to the community for a vote. We don't get the results in real time, and I'm still semi-suspicious that PASS might not override the community vote, but I think this is a good chance for people to influence what they'll see.

The Professional Development sessions are located here, and there are some great ones. Kevin Kline and Joe Webb both are friends and both would present great sessions. You can't go wrong voting for any of the three. Whatever your feelings, please vote: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BD59JCQBT

Our abstract:

The job market is becoming more and more competitive all the time as employees become more and more efficient at accomplishing more work and employers look to reduce their headcounts. This session will present the attendee with practical tips, tricks, and skills for enhancing their marketability. They will learn how to better use networking to their advantage, both online and offline, develop a technical blog, and build a better resume. Once someone has an interview, we provide them with techniques to prepare for the interview, and how to not only impress the potential employer, but also assess if this is the job they really desire.

Take Home Skills:

A technical blog not only shows your expertise but your dedication to your trade. Come out of this session learning what works well with a blog and how to leverage it in the job search. Does anyone hire without researching a candidate online? Learn how to use the internet to your advantage. Come away with a method you can use to see how well you and an opportunity match up. Spend time learning the do's and don'ts of a resume. Bring your resume along with you for an opportunity to have it reviewed. Interviews are the decision point in most employment decisions. Make sure you are not making one of the common mistakes that will eliminate you from the running.

Speaking Ideas - Plan to End

Over the years I’ve seen probably hundreds of technical presentations. I’ve seen good ones, bad ones, on all sorts of topics, many of which I didn’t completely understand. However a good speaker still leads me down the path of allowing me to connect the dots, or enjoy the talk, even if I don’t know exactly what he or she is discussing.

One issue that I often encounter, however, is that speakers tend to run up until time is out and don’t leave time for questions, or not enough time. I’ll see the next speaker coming in and waiting, and unsure of how to interrupt. Speakers get rushed, and they try to slip a lot of content in the last 5-10 minutes.

A suggestion that I have is that as a speaker, plan for 45-50 minutes of content for an hour presentation. I think the worry for most speakers is that people are expecting an hour of content and so you have to deliver an hour.

That’s not necessarily true. I know some people might be disappointed in 30 minutes of material, but if you end at 45 minutes and allow 15 minutes for questions, they’ll be satisfied. They’ll learn something, they can ask questions, and if there are no questions, they can go have a few minutes to relax, check email, or network with others before the next session.

Plan to end early. If you have too much material, look to cut things out, or build  a second, more advanced presentation that can follow on from this one.

The Modern Resume Presentation - Kansas City, MO

I’ll be at SQL Saturday #53 in the Cerner Corporation Riverport Campus on Oct 2, 2010 giving the Modern Resume presentation. It’s free to attend (with an optional small charge for lunch.

Come see me if you are interested.

Speaking and Presenting Tips - Handouts

I’ve given quite a few presentations, one keynote with another to come, and attended many more. I’ve read a few books on how to get better, and then in an Edward Tufte seminar recently, I got another one.
Dr. Tufte mentioned the idea of a supergraphic, an image with a ton of information in it. I think that some BI systems are starting to think of this as something to display to users. Dr. Tufte said that most screens, especially with projectors, can’t really put up the resolution, and I’d agree. Here’s an image I found online:

This is the idea. A ton of information on one piece of paper that you can give out to people. He said that as a presenter if you find one of these, you can likely “dine on it” for years. Here’s another example he showed from the course.

It’s actually about Napoleon's march into Russia in the early 1800s. There were other examples, but I didn’t see any online and didn’t want to play with a scanner.
The idea here is that you give people a bunch of information. Most of it might not matter to each person, but each person will look at something. They’ll also begin to process the data themselves, and let you highlight, talk about, or even encourage debate on the material.
I’m not sure how I’d do this in a tech presentation, but I definitely can see that if you are presenting a lot of information, especially some type of report to others, this would make sense. I’m going to keep this in mind for future presentations I do, and perhaps even build a Modern Resume supergraphic.

Speaking and Presenting Tips - Bullets

I’ve heard this before, it came up in the Tufte seminar I took, and it also was something that grated on my nerves at TechEd recently. I was in a presentation and saw a slide titled “Agenda” that had bullet points like this:

• History of xxx
• Problem of DIY
• Reference examples
• Basic structure
• Enhancements
• Security
• Common Uses
• Expansion to other systems
• Summary

These weren’t the exact items, but it didn’t matter. This was a BI course on a Microsoft technology, but a Microsoft PM, and he read each of these, giving a sentence or two about what it meant.

HE READ EACH BULLET POINT.

Don’t do that. Studies show that people can read much, much faster than you can speak. By the time you’ve started to talk about this, most everyone in the room has read the entire slide.

The same goes for any other slide. People read it, heck, as the speaker I’ll glance back and usually read the entire thing in a couple seconds and then start talking.

Give people information that’s not on the slide. They’ll read what’s there, so go into depth on what you actually want to say. If everything is on the slide, why are you there? Just send them an article, or move them all to Starbuck and hold a “reading” of your material there, similar to what most libraries do for 4 year olds.

Give people information that’s not on the slide, and don’t read what is.

Don’t Be a Shock Jock

  One of the dangers of being an “Internet Journalist” or even just a blogger, is that you might compromise who you are to attract readers.

Or in the case of your “modern resume,” impress someone for a new job.

Here is case of someone losing control of their ethics, for the sake of ratings. This is more of a journalism story, and the only person that I think it really hurts is the writer, but maybe that’s not true. Maybe it didn’t even hurt him. He still has a job.

You, however, might not be so lucky.

There are companies that would let you go if they found out you misrepresented yourself in an interview, or with a resume.

Don’t write something for the sake of attracting or impressing readers. Write about what you know, and what you don’t. Admit your mistakes, and highlight your successes.

Your blog, your presentations, your articles, are all a part of your career, and you should treat them as though they are precious. You are the product in your career, you are what you can sell, and your brand is what you have to sell.

If people stop believing in that, you are in trouble.

Heading to Charlotte

I think I’ll forever associate Charlotte, NC with my middle son. We were heading back to Denver from Virginia Beach a few years ago after a vacation. Our flight was scheduled to go through Charlotte before heading to Denver. My daughter and my middle son were sitting with me as the plane sped down the runway in Virginia Beach when about halfway down the pilot slammed on the brakes. If you’ve never experienced that, it’s very unnerving. My daughter gripped my arm as my son looked up and said

“Are we in Charlotte?”

Totally serious since he’d been engrossed in a book. My daughter, who looked like she might cry up to this point started laughing. She told him we hadn’t even taken off.

There was a problem with the plane, and we ended up spending another night with grandma, which pleased her and the kids. Everything was fine, but it is one of those events that sticks with you.

This morning I’m heading to Charlotte, no kids, to SQL Saturday #33, to speak and see some friends. I’ll be giving my Modern Resume presentation and also part of the keynote presentation. Andy Warren and I, along with PASS President Rushabh Mehta, will be up to talk a little about the history of SQL Saturday and it’s current transition to PASS.

It should be a great event, and the list of speakers is impressive. Kevin Kline and Joe Webb from TN, Denny Cherry from CA, Jessica Moss and Andy Leonard from VA, Aaron Bertrand from RI, Patrick LeBlanc from LA make this one of the more impressive events outside of the national conferences.

When Should You Start Speaking?

I know it’s daunting and a little intimidating, but there are so many people with knowledge to share. I see them answering questions, sharing knowledge, and being helpful to the community, so when are you ready to start speaking?

The answer probably varies, but what I’ve seen in many areas is that when you think you’re not learning much from hearing other people speak, you are ready to give your own presentation.

There are other things you need to learn, how to present effectively, communicate, not die of stage fright, etc., and those are skills to develop, but the hard one, the knowledge, is something many of you already have.

Most people want to be an expert in a topic, but the reality is that you don’t need to be. You just need to be organized, brave enough to stand up, and willing to try.

Why Blog? (or write? or speak? or lead?)

This short piece has a nice summary of the reasons that spending time doing any of these extras. You do this type of stuff at work, or at least your employer wants you to do it, so showing that you can do it is a great leg up on the competition.

SQLSaturday #17 - Baton Rouge Session Evaluation

I guess I did a good job, with all 3s and 4s in my eval (meaning good and great) for the presentation. That was good as I struggled with a projector that cut off my slides (something to be aware of for next time.

The suggestions I got were good, and I had a few that I need to address in the next presentation:

* find examples of people with lower profiles.
* Talk about more differentiation of personal and private profiles
* More on the physical resume
* Talk about privacy items

I'll work on those, and hopefully address some in October when I give this one again.