[EuroPython] Scheduling call for papers and acceptance of talks

[Paul Everitt]

I totally agree with you, that presentation material is overrated and 
should be subservient to the presenter.  And yes, this fact is mostly 
missed by terrified speakers that recite their bulleted lists to the 
audience. :^)

Still, we need *some* kind of metric on which to base talk selection.  
Your recipe below works when the speaker is good.  Not all speakers are 
good.  We could ask people, in their talk proposals, to indicate 
whether or not they are good speakers, but I don't think that will 
help. :^)

Again, should we try to improve the quality?   If there isn't a strong 
opinion that this needs attention, Heimo and I will drop it.  If it is 
worth looking into, though, how can we achieve it?

--Paul

On Feb 24, 2005, at 10:18 AM, Harald Armin Massa wrote:

> Let me second Chris,
>
>>> This is just to make sure that people don't feel too  comfortable on
>>> what  they already know and try to scrap up the presentations an hour
>>> before the  presentation.
>>
>> This doesn't feel too valid to me. I didn't experience this with any 
>> of
>> the presentations given last year, do other people feel that this was 
>> a
>> problem?
>
> Just to give some date: I did two presentations on Europython 2004.
> "Quixote. Pythonic. Web" and "Selling Pyhtoneers"
>
> "Selling Pyhtoneers" was more than 2 hours; the slides were created on
> the two evenings before. At least 30% of "Selling Pythoneers" was
> created on the fly in response to the participants.
>
> I remember that physically small and mentally more than great Zope
> guy, he did a presentation with well prepared slides which he did not
> really use - his presentation was exceptionally joyfull because he
> presented with the people and not for the sake of slides.
>
> Jesus did not have Powerpoint(TM) at all, and still people are talking
> about his preaching on the mountains.
>
> Mark Shuttleworth had some funny and some impressive slides; the earth
> from above and him in cosmonautic gear was great - BUT: I am more than
> sure if he did the same presentation without beamer at a fireplace,
> the reduction in joy would be no more than .3%
>
> I for myself would rather forbid people to use slides than force them
> to deploy them early. We use a language without static typing; why
> should we force people to use static presentations?
>
> (shameless plug: I offer consulting for presentation techniques,
> better call it "presentation mindset")
>
> Harald
>
>
>
> -- 
> GHUM Harald Massa
> - holistic presentation methods -.
> Harald Armin Massa
> Reinsburgstraße 202b
> 70197 Stuttgart
> 0173/9409607