Dreamِ Maidenِ and City

Authors@Google presentation

As you know, I presented for Google on March 21 in Silicon Valley. I linked to the video last week as an update to an older post but I didn’t really point it out to you because I didn’t know if it was really of value online since it is so long, etc. But I see that people like Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels of Separation thought the video was worth watching as have some others such as David Zinger who outlined his key takeaways on his site. So here it is below. Maybe the video can help someone you know make a better presentation in the future. I hope it helps.

I’d give this talk of mine about a 7.5 out of 10. It’s not great, it’s not bad. In a twist on that old Mark Twain line, if I would’ve had more time to prepare I would have made the talk a little shorter. No presentation is perfect. All we can do is get a little better each time and offer up more value to our audience. The audio balance with the music and videos was better live though it does not come across as well in the video. All-n-all though Google did a great job with this video. Nothing was cut from the video, technical hiccups and all. You can’t see the faces of the audience or hear them very well on the tape, but it was a very good crowd. Google is a totally awesome company with a lot of very smart, very cool people.

The one challenging thing about the room was that there was no monitor or any way to put the MacBook in front so that I could see it. So the only way I could know which visual was showing was to look briefly at the screen (usually peripheral vision was enough). Not ideal but each situation is different and the show must go on. It’s just a presentation after all, not the Oscars. The room was great otherwise and fully packed. There were even people sitting on the floor off to my left; a very close and intimate setting. Thanks Google You guys rock! Thanks especially to Katina and Gregory! Can’t wait to return. Maybe next time I’ll at least wear a blazer.(No slides are posted from this talk, but you can see some of the slides in this sample deck used for an article I wrote for Slideshare.net a few weeks ago.)

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