Speaking Performance Update: SQL Sat #53 & PTI’s Back to School Event
Well, I have gotten into the habit of sharing my scores from the feedback on the presentations from these major events that I end up going to. Not really to boast or anything but I believe that it helps me to accomplish 2 things:
1. Keep me honest on my presentations: What I mean by this is I like to keep my content fresh and I always make sure that I put effort into it. For whatever reason, I am just not built to give the same exact presentation every time. I at least change up the demos and when I get less than 5’s across the board then it gives me something to aim for the next time around.
2. Provide information: I hope that people whom are in the user groups are actually following up on whom their speakers are and to that extent if they look here then they already have an idea on some of the things that I speak about…what their scores are…maybe it will make the job easier for them. By far the most common question I get when I say I can speak at a user group is ‘What can you talk about?’. To which my response has always been ‘Here are some things I HAVE talked about but what would YOU LIKE to see me talk about?’ . I am lucky enough that my position requires me to engage in just about every new technology out there and I have been doing it so long that when something new comes out it always reminds me of 7 other technologies that I have worked with in the past.
So for all you user groups out there. You can always drop me a line and let me know if you are in need of a speaker and if I can make it work with my schedule then I will see what I can do.
And now on to the scores!
SQL Saturday #53: Kansas City
Going Spatial:
Quality Score: 5 (9) 4(7) Expectations: Exceeded(12) Met(4)
Resource Governor:
Quality Score: 5(8) 4(1) Expectations: Exceeded(8) Met(1)
PTI’s 3rd Annual Back to School Event
CRM 2011:
Expectations: Exceeded(1) Met(3)
Everything Your DBA Wouldn’t Tell You About SQL Azure:
Expectations: Exceeded(5) Met(4)
Burning Down the Web With Silverlight 4.0 :
Expectations: Exceeded(14) Met(5)
Some of the things that I gleaned from the above is that we need to get a systematic way in order to get people to fill out their feedback. I think that SQL Saturday Nashville had the best system of having proctors in the room that sat right next to the door and basically made sure that they got one from everyone. Not that I am harping or anything …. its just that when you get feedback from everyone it is that much more reassuring that you have the right results. For instance, I know that my Resource Governor talk had more than 9 people in attendance. So did the other people think that the presentation totally sucked enough to not fill out a card? Who knows?
Other than that, I am pretty happy with the scores. I will just have to go back and revamp some of the presentations next time I talk on the topics in order to make the demos even more outlandish and useful until I reach that elusive 100% mark:)
Cheers!
AJ