Apart from reloading my laptop I’m spending a lot of time finishing of my Lotusphere 2007 presentation. It is hard to imagine that there are only 19 days until I leave for Orlando. Only the weather makes it easier to grasp as it is trying its best to be Orlando-like. We haven’t seen a snow flake yet and it’s 8-10 degrees celcius (50F) outside.
My presentation is done, but I’m still fiddling with the minute details of screenshots, which demos to include etc. I’m finding it a little hard to decide on the technical level for the presentation. How much can I assume the attendees know and how much do I have to explain? The crowd at Lotusphere 2006 seemed quite mixed – lot of hard core folks and some that only just knew their way around the Designer IDE. I’m leaning towards simply focusing on the subject at hand and assume that the attendees know the surrounding stuff.
It’s hard…
Any pointers from the more hard core presenters?
Don’t try to play to both crowds .. you only have 55 minutes. Focus on one set of users and stick with it. People will leave your session in the middle no matter what you do 🙂
Seriously … look at the technical depth of your session in the guide and match it.
What I do is start out with an equivlant “Hello World” example and then ramp up the difficulty quickly.
Generally, if you have at least two three letter acronyms in your session title, which you do, that by itself will weed out the majority of people who can’t handle it. I’d assume a mix of medium to hard core, and not worry too much about the low end. You are up against five App Dev sessions and the Worst Practices session, all of which would draw those who don’t quite know their way around, and three of which are also in the Swan, so let them walk out if they need to.
Thank you both for your comments. I’ll take the high road I think… 😉