[Madison] Thanks for the meeting; next time?

[Benet Devereux]

You're welcome - and thanks for your contributions to the discussions! A SQLAlchemy talk would be great, or really anything you happen to think is cool.

And guilty as charged, re: reading off the slides - although I can't say that I spent much more time *making* those slides than I spent giving them. Time, as it so often does, got away from me that week, and I didn't get the time to refine the talk into a good solid dose of usable and entertaining information. Definitely making time to watch the how-to-give-a-lightning talk preso Jason sent a link out to.

-B.

--- On Sun, 2/14/10, Matt Feifarek <matt.feifarek at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Matt Feifarek <matt.feifarek at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Madison] Thanks for the meeting; next time?
> To: "Madison Python Users' Group" <madison at python.org>
> Received: Sunday, February 14, 2010, 3:53 PM
> Hi guys. Thanks for the meeting yesterday
> evening -- that was fun and useful.
> I'd like to commit to doing a 10m (or such)
> talk on SQLAlchemy in the future; perhaps at the March
> meeting, though I have some travels to work around in March.
> Other subjects on which I am not expert, but perhaps
> proficient that might be useful: virtualenv, ZODB, Mako,
> WingIDE. I hope that we can cram in the proposed talk on
> Closure one day.
> 
> 
> 
> FWIW w/r/t the new presentations
> format:I do think that the new structure
> idea is a good one. I like the idea of a
> 10m (ish) presentation but I'd propose that we allow
> for at least equal-time for follow-up questions and
> discussion before the pressure of the next talk. Perhaps we
> could realistically budget 30m for each, with 5 minutes for
> being late to start, 10-15 for show-n-tell and 10-15 for
> follow-up.
> 
> I think we should advertise our topics to other
> like-minded groups (you guys all know who they are better
> than me) and hope for some cross-pollination
> thereby.Last, I hope that the following is
> taken in the spirit in which I write it, and not as a
> criticism at all: I noticed last year at PyCon (and in other
> varied conferences) that some folks spend a LOT of time
> making a slide-based presentation, and then basically read
> the audience the slides. I think we all have a tendency to
> do this, and it makes for a comparatively poor presentation.
> I've certainly done it.
> 
> 
> This tendency is outlined very well in
> Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of
> PowerPoint"[1]. Of course, the audience can read...
> better to let us skim the slides quick while one talks about
> the flesh of the concept, rather than read the bullet
> points. The slides are great, and it's a chore to set
> them up and a generous thing to do for all of us, but when
> there is only 10 minutes, I'd say that it's better
> to use them to frame and illustrate the discussion, rather
> than to be a literal script to follow. As you'll see in
> Tufte's essay, reading the slides also has a tendency to
> dumb-down the conversation, due to the data density
> restrictions of projected slides (have to speak in short,
> cryptic phrases to fit on screen).
> 
> 
> ALSO: There was a fellow last night who
> mentioned co-working spaces in Madison; guy, give me a
> shout, perhaps we can help make one happen here in
> Madison.
> AND ALSO: I'll tell Nico Preston when I next
> talk with him that MadPy might be interested in helping his
> disaster-relief web project.
> 
> 
> Thanks!
> 1: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint
> and though it's for-pay, it seems to be online
> here:
> 
> http://appl003.lsu.edu/acadaff/cxcweb.nsf/$Content/Technology%2BWorkshop%2BMaterials/$file/Tufte_article_reduced.pdf
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 


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