[oclug] (OT) April 6 meeting

[Ian! D. Allen]

One of the things we learn as presenters is how to control the crowd.

People should feel free to ask questions; I disagree with asking people to
wait until the end of the talk.  The presenter must eventually learn how
to say either "great question - hold that until the next slide" or "I'll
cover that in a slide or two" rather than breaking the flow of the talk.

People will get caught up in the excitement of discovery and they will
start side-talking or talking over the presenter.  The presenter must
learn how to control the cacophony.  Talks just aren't alive if you
demand that everyone sit still and shut up.  The presenter has to
serialize the enthusiasm into one-person-at-a-time without dampening it.

You get better results teaching the one person at the front of the room
how to work the crowd, rather than trying to educate every one of the
100 people in the room how to behave (and repeating that every time
someone new walks into the room).

Help teach the conductor how to conduct; don't chastise the orchestra.

-- 
-IAN!  Ian! D. Allen   Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
       EMail: idallen at idallen.ca   WWW: http://www.idallen.com/
       College professor via: http://teaching.idallen.com/
       Board Member, TeleCommunities CANADA  http://www.tc.ca/