Yesterday I went to the EuroIA predux and presented my talk, or rather an outline of it. A mishap with a lost portable harddrive which contained the core of my presentation and all of my examples meant that I quickly had to put together a few slides which somewhat summarised my points.
I wasn’t happy with it and can confess that in a state of panic I played with the idea of not going. I love presenting but only when I’m well prepared and that wasn’t the case yesterday. Up until now I haven’t really been involved in the London IA/UX scene and there were a lot of people coming to the predux that I know by name and via Twitter. Naturally I wanted to make a first good impression. So, in my state of panic I thought perhaps it’s better not to present if what I’ll be presenting isn’t great? But, of course I didn’t bail. That’s not who I am. Plus, I really wanted to meet everyone and get their thoughts on my talk even if it wasn’t in the state I’d intended it to be. Prague will be the first time I’m speaking at a conference and as much as I can be sitting with my slides rehearsing with myself, it’s when you stand there presenting it out loud to people that you get the real feedback.
So I pleaded to our creative director here at the BBC to leave an hour earlier and make up for the time today and thankfully he was ok with it. A visit to Starbucks, a latte and an hour later and I had the presentation in a state that at least was ok to be shown to people. I still wasn’t happy with it but at least it had some structure behind it.
Arriving at the Guardian’s office we were split up into groups. I was first up in mine and no, I didn’t enjoy presenting it (despite beer in hand), but I got really valuable feedback which was the whole idea.
It was a great sessions and the reviewers and fellow speakers in my group were honest, supportive and constructive. Just the way feedback is supposed to be given. They gave me some great pointers of things to change and be wary of, suggestions of points to include, reassurance both of of things I’ve thought about including and that there is something in my idea behind the talk. Of course I think so but always nice that others don’t think it’s a complete load of rubbish.
No doubt the session yesterday will make my talk better so thank you to Martin Belram for the great space and feedback, Theba Islam for organising the predux, Leisa Reichelt, Margaret Hanley, Mark Plant and Lynsey for your valuable comments.
The next couple of weeks will see me revising my presentation and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you in Prague. Hearing what you think and what you’re experiences are on the subject I’ll be speaking about – Designing for everyone, anywhere, at any time – a talk which based on the feedback yesterday will be focusing a lot more on UX and responsive design.
See you in Prague.
