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Thoughts from Innotech
I spent half the day at Innotech Austin, a one-day conference that melds elements of business, technology and marketing, among other subjects.
I’m not a business reporter anymore, so I’m always a little leery of events with such a heavy business emphasis, but on the other hand, I love to be around tech people and hear their thoughts on presentations or just socialize with people I normally only see on Twitter or Facebook.
It would be impossible for me to review Innotech as a whole since there were typically six panels going on at once and I was only able to attend half the day, but from my quick peek around the expo floor and attendance in a few panels, it was obvious that social media is a dominant topic — it was the subject of a luncheon presentation from an Intel social media guru and a fiery presentation from self-described social media ninja Giovanni Galucci. (Never mind that ninjas are supposed to be covert about their identity).
Galucci is a great, energetic speaker, but other presenters I saw were not (or, in one unfortunate case, came across like an olde-timey snake oil salesman).
It reminded me how hard it is for someone to put on a good presentation for a mixed tech and business audience. It’s a problem that plagues South by Southwest Interactive — panels and Core Conversations with fantastic-sounding speakers often turn out to be boring or preaching to the choir in actual practice.
One person whom I greatly respect and who attends lots of conferences of this sort told me today, “I want to hear about stuff I don’t already know.”
It’s a common problem — how do you keep the tech and social media from getting bored with information they already know while not overwhelming audience members with less knowledge?
At South by Southwest, I raved about Guy Kawasaki, who made for one of the most entertaining Q&A presenters I’ve ever seen at the conference. Though his sparring partner, Chris Anderson, was not nearly so charismatic, Kawasaki did an expert job of keeping the tone light, but the subject matter deep and focused. He was fun and unpredictable.
I say this as someone who’s giving a presentation tomorrow to a group of college journalism students; I watched with an extra-careful eye today, wondering if I was relying too much on a PowerPoint slide show and if I’d fall into some of the presentation traps I saw seeing right in front of me.
It’s very, very difficult to give a good presentation to a large tech crowd these days. It’s gotten to the point where an engaging, thought-provoking panel that really gives everyone in the room new knowledge has, sadly, become the exception and not the rule.
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By GIovanni Gallucci
October 30, 2009 10:53 AM | Link to this
Omar,
Thanks for the kind words.
@giovanni
By Alex Jones (@BaldMan)
October 29, 2009 5:34 PM | Link to this
I heartily agree Omar. This is an issue with every conference I've attended in the last few years, though speaking from the perspective of someone who regularly schedules speakers, I can attest to the frustration that exists on the scheduling side. It's hard to judge the strength of a speaker ahead of time unless you are lucky enough to see them speak at another event, which is rare. Face-to-face meetings ahead of time can help, but some people prove to be much more engaging in direct conversation than they are on stage. The mixed-interests and experience levels that you note only compound the issue further.