Akademy 2010
 

The Akademy 2010 organizers would like to invite our community to the event:

"Akademy will take place in Tampere, Finland, from July 3rd to 10th. We would like to invite the Maemo community not only to attend the event but also to participate :)

Our program committee is looking for talks, workshops and BoF proposals. The main topics are "KDE Beyond The Linux Desktop" and "Social Desktop", but we are also interested in other topics relevant to the KDE community. Please find more information here: http://akademy.kde.org/call-for-papers.php

If you have questions about the CfP, please contact the program committee: akademy-talks at kde dot org" - Claudia Rauch, Business Manager KDE e.V.

The deadline for all submissions is Friday, 23 April 2010

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

I think this will be a good venue for the Maemo User Experience Framework presentation.

I am clearing my schedule just in case.... :D

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Another update from Claudia after I emailed her:

Ok, so far no activity here... so let's get at least a discussion underway! I am going to start off assuming no Maemo sponsorship to be on the safe side, so it makes sense to focus first on potential attendees in and around Tampere. Any takers?

Note: I am planning to attend and hope to present my work-in-progress on the proposed Maemo User Experience Framework. The only thing that would keep me from going is lack of a place to stay as I cannot afford a hotel. So if any of my friends in Tampere/Helsinki have a floor I can crash on it would be appreciated. :D

EDIT: I will plan on partnering with someone from the area just in case I can't arrange a place to stay, and my partner could give the presentation. Volunteers welcome.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Polling the community-- anyone else have plans for this event? I'm hoping we can get representation.

As of now it looks like I will not be going after all, due to American Airline mile-usage policies (after I found a place to stay, figures). That may change but I am not going to bank on it. So I still need a partner to deliver my presentation...

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Okay, no one else stepped up (:p) so I did.

I took the presentation to a higher, broader place and renamed it "Enhancing User Engagement on Mobile Devices". The talk is scheduled for July 3 as shown:

http://akademy.kde.org/program/conference#saturday

I have a preliminary presentation available for review by the community. Following are comments from my post at the project page on MeeGo:

So far not a peep from MeeGo crowd, so show 'em how it's done maemo.org! Fire away!

caveat: After thinking I had this solved, I am having trouble getting the flight arrangements handled once again so there's a possibility still that I will not make it... :/

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Oops-- somehow I accidentally overwrote the uploaded presentation with an older version instead of the newest. So disregard what's up there for now. I'll fix it later today.

Oh! and my flight fiasco is solved! I'm going! :)

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Glad you got your flight sorted. And I'll hold off commenting until you've got a newer version available. Immediate impression is generally good though. :)

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Ok, a newer version is up!

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Okay, many, MANY changes. Thans to everyone who offered advice; it was all very helpful!

I decided to increase the number of slides, but each one is no more than 30 seconds long (some much shorter).

I still have some filling out and fleshing in to do, especially toward the end. I have got to wrap this up by the end of this week...

Note that the PDF is now 50 megabytes so it might take a while to come up for you!

Link: http://maemo-daemons.org/Enhancing%2...%20Devices.pdf

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

*entering the "big, mean critic" mode I use for my wife's art*

You've done well in mostly eliminating the super-complex process diagrams. That mind-numbing feedback ecosystem diagram still lurks in there though. And even beyond that you could simplify further.

In many cases, you're reading slides to your audience. Your audience can read faster in their heads than you can read aloud, and once they've read what you're going to say, you're a redundant fixture in the room. They're gone.

Kill the text on those slides. You're doing a "sage on the stage" session, so you darn well better maintain your status as the most important happening in the general vicinity.

Don't be afraid to talk without your words in giant print behind you. Keep a simple image, resting in whitespace, up there instead. It doesn't need to be replaced often. It doesn't need arrows or stars or scratch'n'sniff stickers. It only needs to be loosely, symbolically tied to your talk.

You're a high energy guy. Use that! You don't have to bounce of the walls like Cliff Stoll (unless that's your thing), but be energetic and dynamic and the most exciting, interesting, and important thing going on.

PowerPoint is just boring, old, color transparencies without all the "Oops, it melted in the laser printer" mess. Never work to try to put yourself in a position where your presentation graphics are more interesting than you. Being more dull than transparencies only works for Ben Stein.

Application feedback, micropayments, cloud media storage, media rating, gaming achievements, and augmented reality are all nifty Web 2.71828 technologies, and I don't think too many people are going to argue they wouldn't benefit a platform, but how do they all fit together? I get more the feel of a laundry list than a single, cohesive theme.

Similarly, you list some existing tools (Silk, MUEF) and some theoretical ones (Diaspora), but you don't explain what they are, what strengths they bring, or how they might tie together.

How does it all fit together? What's your vision, boiled down to its bare essence? Then, what's the next step or steps toward the goal you envision?

What are the criticisms you expect from your audience? How are you heading those off as you build your presentation now?

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Thanks sjgadsby.

Actually I started with your approach and ran into 2 problems. The first was that others asked if I could make the presentation stand alone-- which (arg) meant backing off my original "keep it simple" premise and adding all that text. :(

The other involves my own issues with speaking in public. In a workshop or brainstorm session I can do okay. No problem thinking on my feet and remembering my points. But when I get in front of a crowd I blank, especially if I'm on video. I've always been critically self conscious and no amount of practice or experience has fixed that. A lovely consequence of autism.

There is a theme and micropayments belong (so does augmented reality, gaming achievements, etc): the theme is feedback. Paying a developer tells him/her you appreciate their work, and to what degree. I've already gotten other feedback that made it clear I need to make THAT clear. Thanks. ;)

As for listing resources versus explaining them, I only have 30 minutes and a lot of material to cover. It's also good to leave something for Q&A.

I'm still refining this and at this point more inclined to remove material than add. I'm thinking about stripping down the "walled garden" stuff for instance. The way my crazy ADHD/autistic mind works, I need to occasionally print out the presentation with notes, spread it across the living room floor (my wife loves this part) and hack at it with pens and highlighters. I figure I have 1 or 2 more of those sessions left...

EDIT: as for the hairy diagram: it's central to the talk, and I don't see any way around the detail. But I'll explain it in the talk.

EDIT 2: as much as I want to talk a lot about some of the important related items like walled gardens, I'm pretty much convinced I need to just refer to them rather than make it a subsection. That will help me streamline the talk and focus more on the core subject.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

I hope I didn't come across badly. I don't hate your presentation. I felt this was a time when "do your worst" was the request. If I offended you, I do apologize.

Can't you do what you've done here? Using the notes area for the content you'll be speaking aloud and including that in a PDF version allows for the stand-alone version.

Everyone always wants "a copy of your slides afterwards", which is a nice idea, but misses the reason why an in-person conference was desired and useful in the first place.

By all means, keep a version of your presentation appended with lots of notes in front of you! I'm not against that. Sure, the best speakers can do without, but we're not them.

I didn't mean to imply they don't. I want you to sell the fact that they, like all the disparate bits, come together in a desirable way.

Understood. I just want to make sure you've clearly identified one underlying focus and then honed all your material to build support for that in an effective manner.

To that end, the following sounds good:

I know, and it's also fairly clear. It's just heavy.

You're doing well. I've looked at a few previous revisions of your presentation, and it has gotten better and better over time.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Thanks again sjgadsby, HIGHLY appreciated help. I'll take into account what I can.

One thing I'd like to do is represent certain text details with images instead. Maybe create a simple graph for the stats, or omit them entirely from the talk. The data will be included in a whitepaper and I can mention that.

And if it's getting better, it's largely due to about 4 or 5 people (including you) who have taken such a high interest. This is your talk, too! :)

EDIT: oh, and I took no offense at all. You said nothing offensive. :)

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Hi Randall,

I would be worried that you will run into the time troubles you had at the summit again - I like the slides, but they definitely feel a little text heavy. I think that they'd benefit by simply having less text on there - slide 7, for example, could have all text completely replaced by a trend line overlayed on your background photo.

Slide 14 could probably go :}

I had trouble identifying your key argument in the first few slides - it can be OK to bring people to a destination they don't know in a presentation, but I usually recommend saying up-front what you want to prove, and then drive towards that proof (so that people can contextualise your arguments). Your key point is, I guess, that companies need to have high-quality feedback mechanisms to empower their user-base? Perhaps that could be front & center in the presentation (without so many words on the slide) and then you reinforce that core point by showing the good feedback that people have gotten, contrast with feedback done badly, address the challenges & nod to the future afterwards, and then circle back to the core point - you need to have feedback mechanisms, you need to integrate feedback into your marketing & product plans, etc.

I hope you don't mind late feedback!

Cheers,
Dave.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

I was a bit lost too in the beginning. That reminded me of a hint that got a few years back from a teacher about presentations: "First tell the audience what you are about to tell them, then tell them and finally tell them what you just told them. Use slides to support your speech not vice versa - You want the audience to listen, not read."

I'm also thinking that the presentation is too heavy for a 30 minute time slot. May be you could shorten the beginning of the presentation? Don't get me wrong the presentation is good but it needs to loose some weight.

Looking forward in seeing this presentation live.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

A note about the time slot - do a timing test. Give the presentation to family, your pets or a teddy bear just so you see how much time it really takes (pets and teddy bears are notoriously bad feedback sources, though).

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Thanks guys.

The Amsterdam talk was different: I had a 20 minute talk prepared and at the last minute had to go to 5. I tried to get it down but I knew there was too much material-- in hindsight I should have just explained it could not be done.

I have tested this presentation and even with the large number of slides it comes in at less than 15 minutes.

As to other points, to replicate what I posted at meego.com:

I really appreciate the help!

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

I like your idea on slide 7 and in fact already planned to try something like that. Unfortunately I'm an artist at heart and "sculpt" even my presentations. I start off with text and then replace with graphics as I have time.

Time is my biggest enemy as other aspects of life have been crowding this out. :/

As for slide 14, it's the heart of the presentation so I can't delete it if I wanted to. Instead, I'll refactor it as I just posted. I think most will be agreeable to what I'll do, and in fact the approach I'm taking will solve other problems. Win-win.

As for identifying the key argument-- you're right, the beef isn't quite there. I have a good idea how to fix that. I worked so hard on bolstering the main premise and propping up strawmen that I neglected key details. BTW, the strawmen will be torched. I don't need to focus on obstacles-- the audience will do that on their own. I need to focus on the goals and possibilities. ;)

And the key is not about companies per se so your guess there tells me I really do need to work on the message. I'd like to go into the detail you suggest but I just have not turned up anything usable in my research and just flat don't have much free time-- so I'll have to build around what I have and hope that will suffice.

My main problem with presentations is that I'm highly intuitive and tend to connect dots mentally that are hard to translate to paper. But I think I can pull it off. I have to.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Alright, I have already made many of the suggested changes tonight. Here's how the flow will look:

1. Introduction
2. Define feedback
3. List feedback values (per presentation theme)
4. Build case for the importance of context (and how feedback relates)
5. Build case for mobility (replace some text with graphs)
6. Build feedback ecosystem (breaking previous slide 14 into parts)
7. Mention challenges
8. List solutions and resources
9. Briefly describe future possibilities
10. Summary
11. Close

sound good?

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

The flow of the story looks good.

Edit: You should have time to answer some questions at end or are you the kind of presenter that allows questions at any point?

This presentation should cause some discussion. At least I'm hoping it does. Good thing the audience isn't just Finns - we are not usually a good audience when it comes to questions :)

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

My goal is a 20 minute talk (I have 30 available). I did a run-through today for an audience of 2 and it came in at 18. There are a few things to add and a few more to trim but it looks like I can easily leave 5 to 10 minutes for questions. I have intentionally glossed over some detail to stimulate discussion. I really wish I could have followed this with a workshop but it gelled too late for that.

And I'm used to a Finnish audience, so yeah, I know what to expect in part. :D

Anyway I like to allow questions mixed in but I don't think that works in a 30 minute talk with this much material.

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Latest update!

The PDF is much smaller now that I've left notes out. This is about 95% of the way there. I still have to add content to one slide, and tweak a few bits here and there, but I'm confident with this structure and overall content.

It *should* be understandable now even without notes, ignoring that I have not yet added a detail of feedback yet.

Link: http://maemo-daemons.org/Enhancing%2...%20Devices.pdf

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Ok, new version up! This should be it or very close!

Some major changes, some minor...

http://maemo-daemons.org/Enhancing%2...%20Devices.pdf

Re: Akademy 2010 Call for Papers
 

Day 1 blog article-- http://tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com...my-2010-day-1/

Re: Akademy 2010
 

Day 2-- now with more content!

http://tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com...my-2010-day-2/

Re: Akademy 2010
 

I got home a few hours ago, and I can't wait until the next conference! Great presentations and great people. Here's a few photos:

Re: Akademy 2010
 

And more...