Google Ops Presentation and Meeting Formats

Fri Jan 27 17:36:52 PST 2006

At 5:07 PM -0800 1/27/06, Alan Horn wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Jan 2006, Brent Chapman wrote:
>
>>
>>From my point of view, both of them ended up rushing through the 
>>last 1/2 to 1/3 of their presentations, which is usually the most 
>>interesting parts, because they got held up in the introductory 
>>stuff in the beginning.
>>
>
>But honestly Brent, thats the speaker's issue to solve. We may have 
>to agree to disagree on this point if you don't see it that way.

Yes, it is the speaker's issue to solve, but it is a failing of the 
organizer if the speaker _isn't_ solving it.  The speakers should be 
briefed before-hand on what sort of audience this is and how to 
handle them (were they?), and the organizer should be ready and 
willing to step in during the presentation when things seem to be 
getting extremely bogged down (as they were last night).

Fundamentally, I think that the organizer's job includes preparing 
the speaker for the audience, and stepping in to try to make sure the 
talk goes well.  The organizer knows their particular audience, while 
the speaker generally doesn't (though they may have dealt with 
similar audiences before).  Preparing the speaker is part of 
arranging the talk, and stepping in to nudge things back on track is 
part of MCing it.

Now, on the grand scale of things, this isn't that big a deal.  I've 
been very pleased with the quantity and quality of speakers that 
BayLISA has been getting lately.  This is a suggestion for improving 
what's already a good thing, that's all.

-Brent
-- 
Brent Chapman <brent at greatcircle.com> -- Great Circle Associates, Inc.
Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989
For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/
Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog