[advocacy-discuss] Tech Days Tour 2007-2008

[max at bruningsystems.com]

Jim Grisanzio wrote:
>
>
> Teresa.Giacomini at Sun.COM wrote:
>> Hi Max, and everyone else too,
>>
>> Yes!  We are looking for non-Sun speakers for OpenSolaris Day.  So, 
>> if you are interested in speaking, please send me a note with the 
>> venue you'd like, and the topic you would like to speak on.  An 
>> abstract for the topic would be even better. 
>
>
>
> One of the things we may want to try during the community sessions at 
> these OpenSolaris Days is lightning talks of 5 minutes each and/or 
> short 20-25 minute talks instead of the hour-long talks (50 mins + 
> questions). The reason I bring it up is that I went to the Ruby 
> conference here in Japan recently and they had several dozen speakers 
> over the course of the two day event and only two or three 1-hour long 
> keynotes. In other words, many more people were able to participate, 
> and the attention span of the audience was significantly increased as 
> well. Just an idea ...
>
> Jim
Hi Jim,
5 minute talks!  Is this because so many people wanted to talk, or 
because nobody had anything worth saying that lasted longer
than 5 minutes?  I guess if the talks are not technical, this is a way 
to go.  As for a 5 minute technical talk, it would be better to just
throw up a slide with a list of references and take questions...  Even 
20 minutes sounds way too short to get into any technical
depth.  I'm curious, were the attendees at the Ruby conference 
developers or managers or marketing people?
In a 50 minute talk, the speaker should be able to hold the attention 
span the entire time (assuming the topic is of interest to the audience). 

Then again, typically at the beginning of a talk, you probably get ~80% 
of people's attention.  After a short time, say 1-2 minutes,
this drops off to ~10%.  Then, in the last minute or so, people realize 
you are about to finish so the attention span goes back up to
something like 75%.  So, in a 1 hour talk, you only really need about 5 
minutes of actual information, and the rest of the time
you can say just about anything, because no one is paying attention 
anyway.  A little bit like this email, I suspect...

Wait, I have an idea!  I am willing to do 10 5-minute talks one after 
another...

My impression is that some people are much more interested in the topic 
being presented than can be covered in a 50 minute
talk.  Of course, other people have no interest whatsoever, and should 
probably take a walk or something until there is a talk they think
will hold their attention.  It might be nice to somehow come up with a 
way where people who are more interested can talk 1 on 1 with the 
presenters after the talks are finished.

max