A Painful Lesson

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunny/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I’m not particularly inclined to write self-revelatory prose here, but my experience yesterday related directly to the issues I discuss in this website, and the insights I took from it have some broader applications.

Yesterday I was presenting my “Shifting Platforms/Shifting Paradigms” talk at the CLMS/CLHS conference in San Diego. Though I had limited time, I was lucky enough to attend Alan November’s opening keynote before my session time. His talk was exciting and inspirational, and though I worried that a few of his points were similar to mine, I felt that my talk was actually a great (if less expert) companion to his.

I went to my assigned room, set up, and waited…and NO ONE CAME!

Well, it didn’t turn out as badly as that, as I started to pack up with my tail between my legs, a couple of people came in, and we sat down and had a good conversation, roughly following the outline of my original talk (I did skip the small group breakout however).

I’m not posting this as a public licking of wounds (well, maybe just a little bit), nor am I suggesting that the conference attendees should have come to my session.  Rather, I came to a couple of realizations about this new world that I’m attempting to enter.

These may seem completely obvious to those of you who have been attending and speaking at conferences over time, but I write them as advice to myself as much as others.

First, for breakout sessions people want skills more than big ideas.  The “Shifting Platforms…” talk is pretty good, but it was the same type of territory explored in the keynote.  In a brief walkaround I noticed that the largest and most enthusiastic crowd was in a session dedicated to exploring Google Wave (if no one showed up, I was going to go in there myself!).  People need to be inspired and given food for thought, but they want concrete takeaways as well.  Luckily the two new presentations I’m writing have a much more concrete “hot button” angle, so I hope to address this.

Second, people attach to presenters as much as to topics.  Beside the issues with the general topic, people didn’t come because they didn’t know who I am and whether listening to me would be worth their limited time.  In part this is a function of time and experience, but it is also a function of direct networking.  I was not able to get to the conference until immediately before my session.  I might have had more success if I had come the night before and talked to some people about what I was doing.  I can’t forget that this is a people business, and if I make a PowerPoint, they won’t necessarily come.

Humbled by the experience (and who can’t use a bit of humiliation now and then?) I hope I can learn the lessons it brings to me and focus on giving people what they want and not just what I want to do.