[Linux] talk at a meeting in South FL?

[Robert Citek]

Michael Marschall wrote:
> --- Terry Richards <sn00per1@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
>> Adam Glass wrote:
>>
>>>> how to talk your boss into using linux
>>>
>>> Great idea!  Would you like to do this talk?
>>>
>>>
>> i would love it, but it was more of a request or suggestion as i would 
>> need some help at this point in time. what all is involved? i have some 
>> experience as a scuba instructor and have an inkling of how to make 
>> transitions from in front of the desk to behind it and running a slide 
>> show and have no problem memorizing a 20 minute rap. matter of fact i 
>> once got on my soapbox sunup til sundown down, every day for 3 weeks 
>> straight. . . . you might have to pull the plug on me if i get 
>> going...anybelly else got butterflys? i'm not sure where to start but if 
>> i could get the slides and material from maddog i'll give it a shot
>>
> 
>>From my experience, the best talks are done on subjects the speaker needs no
> reference material to do. If the speaker has to go research a subject at length
> they will most likely do a very dry, very scripted and somewhat lacking talk.
> This is not the case for each and every person out there, but I have seen
> people talk about subjects they *know* and it is obvious they know it.

An alternative to the one very long talk is the many short talks:
Lightning Talks[1].  If you've ever been to a conference where they've
had these or if you've ever participated in one, then you probably know
that they are truly a blast.

As MJD writes: "The point is that because the talk is only five minutes
long, you don't have to take it so seriously. Just try to say something
brief and interesting, and then get out in a hurry. If people want to
follow up or ask questions, they will catch you in the hallway afterwards."

A quick browse through the FLUX mail archives lists a whole bunch of
sub-5 minute talks:

 - simple image manipulation
 - hard drive partitions
 - crontab's run-parts
 - loops in a bash script
 - virtual machines
 - filtering using squid
 - screencasting
 - kernel modules
 - subversion
 - gis-knoppix
 - IM, IRC, chat

Just food for thought.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Talk
[2] http://perl.plover.com/lt/osc2003/lightning-talks.html

Regards,
- Robert