YAPC::Europe - Are Joint Talks A Good Idea?
Marty and I are giving our first joint talk which could well turn out to be a disaster. At the time of submission this sounded like a great idea. Marty knows that I pay more attention to detail than him so the talk should have structure and I know that Marty should be able to keep the audience entertained and if all else fails talk for an hour about something.
When I mentioned YAPC this morning he said, “What are we planning on talking about again?”. (See, I pay more attention to detail: I know the talk’s about CPAN). This surprised me as I have already sent him a talk outline and can remember having discussions about the content of this talk. He laughed and said, “Well I’m not sure I actually read the outline; I just thought you wanted me to format it” (yes he actually said the semi-colon). And in relation to the conversations he said, “Was that when I was watching that episode of South Park…”.
August 26th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
It sure beats talks about joints, I think.
I like the way that, even though youse live in the same house, you *sent* him the outline. That made me smile wryly, and look into the middle distance. (Although that might have been the Emmylou I was playing at the same time.)
Still, I shall come watch the comedic interplay.
August 26th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
In my experience, joint talks done right can work really well.
Richard Clamp and I gave a joint talk at whichever YAPC it was back in Amsterdam.
We wrote the script for the talk in an editor running in a terminal connected via a screen session in ‘-x’ mode to each of our laptops, whilst sitting on the couch next to each other. This meant that we could both move the cursor, and take control instantly. This was important as our ‘script’ required me to complete his sentances and vice versa, and enabled us to write the free-flowing script the same way we might chat on irc.
James Duncan and I are giving a joint talk at EuroOSCON this year. I’m looking forward to that, since I think James is an excellent speaker.
August 27th, 2006 at 1:14 am
[…] Karen has already mentioned our joint YAPC::Europe talk called “My First CPAN Module“. We probably should rehearse it, or at least talk about it when I’m not watching South Park. I did read the outline she wrote, and I’m sure I could easily talk for at least an hour by following her plan. […]