ILUG - Irish Lotus User Group Conference
Last week I attended ILUG in Dublin. The event was absolutely fantastic -- bigger and better than ever before with more sessions, more speakers and many more attendees. In fact, IMO (forget the 'Humble' bit cause I've been to more than a few shows in my time!) this was the best European event since the last Lotusphere Europe in Berlin. Anyone remember when that was? 2001?? Maximum credit should go to the organizers; people like Paul Mooney, Rob Novak, Warren Elsmore, Bill Buchan…
This year I was invited to deliver a session (twice, in fact) entitled “Build or Bust: Controlling your Designs from Development to Production”. (You can download presentation slides here)
The first session was particularly well attended with over 100 people. And I thought I had prepared carefully….
(1) I had saved a copy of my presentation slides to a memory stick (just in case the laptop blew up);
(2) I had printed copies of the slides for delegates (but I had only printed 30 sets);
(3) I had practiced the session (of course!); and
(4) I arrived in the room in plenty of time for setup.
Unfortunately the projector switched itself off every 5 minutes for 2 or 3 minutes and the microphone switched itself off every 10 minutes for a couple of minutes.
(read more)
This year I was invited to deliver a session (twice, in fact) entitled “Build or Bust: Controlling your Designs from Development to Production”. (You can download presentation slides here)
The first session was particularly well attended with over 100 people. And I thought I had prepared carefully….
(1) I had saved a copy of my presentation slides to a memory stick (just in case the laptop blew up);
(2) I had printed copies of the slides for delegates (but I had only printed 30 sets);
(3) I had practiced the session (of course!); and
(4) I arrived in the room in plenty of time for setup.
Unfortunately the projector switched itself off every 5 minutes for 2 or 3 minutes and the microphone switched itself off every 10 minutes for a couple of minutes.
(read more)
As one delegate said, at least the session was going to be remembered by everyone for a long time! Another delegate jokingly suggested that I carry a spare projector with me on my travels.
In fact, these problems (nothing to do with the organizers and everything to do with the owners of the venue) didn't really cause a big problem. It helped that there were printed copies of the slides for some of the delegates, and it was also quite funny, in a somewhat twisted way. At one point I even had Rocky Oliver trying to fix the AV equipment!
It just goes to show that no matter what preparations we make, there will always be times when things beyond our control go wrong. (In fact this is one of the answers I could give to the question posed in the article posted below, "What Keeps You Up at Night?").
The next day I was due to repeat the session. As I was walking towards the room where the session was taking place I passed past one of our customers and had a blinding flash of inspiration; why not drag him on stage and see if he wants to present the session with me? All I can say is that Neil Gower did a superb job. Thanks Neil – I’m not sure what I would have done were the positions to be reversed. Hopefully I’ll never find out!
And maybe I can find a presentation on “Present or Bust: Controlling your Presentation from Start to Finish” before next year’s ILUG.
In fact, these problems (nothing to do with the organizers and everything to do with the owners of the venue) didn't really cause a big problem. It helped that there were printed copies of the slides for some of the delegates, and it was also quite funny, in a somewhat twisted way. At one point I even had Rocky Oliver trying to fix the AV equipment!
It just goes to show that no matter what preparations we make, there will always be times when things beyond our control go wrong. (In fact this is one of the answers I could give to the question posed in the article posted below, "What Keeps You Up at Night?").
The next day I was due to repeat the session. As I was walking towards the room where the session was taking place I passed past one of our customers and had a blinding flash of inspiration; why not drag him on stage and see if he wants to present the session with me? All I can say is that Neil Gower did a superb job. Thanks Neil – I’m not sure what I would have done were the positions to be reversed. Hopefully I’ll never find out!
And maybe I can find a presentation on “Present or Bust: Controlling your Presentation from Start to Finish” before next year’s ILUG.
Category ILUG
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