Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek

By, For and About Silverlight Developers

Zen Presentation

Another in a series of ruminations about how to Present Silverlight.

One of the brighter Silverlight coders and MVPs asked me tonight “what is all this about your changing how you present at conferences and web casts.” 

In answering him, I realized that my thinking continues to evolve, and that it might make a somewhat interesting post, so here it is[1]

What I have in mind begins with refocusing on Silverlight capabilities and the application of those capabilities rather than the syntactic specifics. We do a great job drilling down in our  videos and the tutorials,  and I don’t believe that is why people come to our presentations or Webcasts.

To create a 45 or 60 minute presentation that grabs a programmer and lights up the imagination, I believe you need to start with some form of limiting discipline. The one that works for me is to grind down my idea until I can state it clearly in a single simple sentence. 

The harder task is to then keep that single idea driving every aspect of the presentation.

What you value is what you’ll deliver

Dancer

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[1]  Almost none of this is  original and my thinking on this was most recently and positively influenced by two great presenters: Garr Reynolds and Scott Hanselman)

Posted: Jul 02 2008, 11:32 PM by jesseliberty | with 6 comment(s) |
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Comments

simvouli said:

Hi Jesse,

I clearly understand what you are talking about - there is no way to find the best approach for everybody. But what I want to mention, is the fact, that we, the audience have the opportunity to rewind a video as often as we want, we even can stop at a certain frame to recapture, what's goin on in a snippet for example.

And on top of it we are lucky to review the source code and play with it.

So - for my opinion - you and many others do a very good job to help us getting the right street on our own development targets.

Please don't worry for pros and cons, just continue your great job as it is... improvements will come with the growth of own experiences...

Cheers, Simvouli

PS: i hope my english is understandable enough (I am native German)

# July 3, 2008 11:42 AM

jesseliberty said:

You are very kind, and your English is excellent, certainly better than my German.  I worked for a boss from Germany and I told him the only thing I knew how to say in German was "Wie viel ist ein Apfel?"

He said, "no you are pronouncing it wrong, it is: 'Wie viel ist ein bier?'"

Which from my brief experience staying in a youth hostel (a large tent) in Munich in 1976, was correct.

-jesse

# July 3, 2008 11:54 AM

kanno41 said:

"If you try to please everyone, you'll please noone."

Just be assured that no matter what you put up as far as videos/tutorials, they will be immensly useful.

I have a suggestion for organizing videos. You could have certain tags on a video that could describe what skills would be recommended to know before continuing the video.

That way, you could be assured that people would be on the same general level and wouldn't have as big of an issue on what level to narrate at.

This would also give some sequencing for newer people to begin learning but still allow access for people who just want to watch a "How Do I?" video.

# July 3, 2008 12:31 PM

jesseliberty said:

>> have a suggestion for organizing videos. You could have certain tags on a video that could describe what skills would be recommended to know before continuing the video.<<

I think that is a great idea. I'd like to see it be "on-demand" but yes.  Take a look at this mock-up:

www.jesseliberty.com/.../MoreInfo.jpg

I have no idea if this can be done, or when we could do it, but it is an appealing idea.

# July 3, 2008 1:44 PM

BenReierson said:

I'm a big fan of the narrated sped-up screencast approach. I think it accomplishes exactly what you're after.

# July 3, 2008 4:49 PM

jesseliberty said:

Ben,

Just curious, have you seen the speeded up screencast done elsewhere?

# July 3, 2008 5:06 PM