Last night I suffered the fate of all STC Past-Presidents – I gave a presentation at a regular meeting.
This was, in fact, a good thing – fatherhood brings few opportunities to mingle, so I knew that giving the presentation at a meeting would be the only way I would manage to attend the meeting.
Dina brought Ben along, and he was the real star of the show before and after the presentation. I tried to ask Ben to refrain from heckling or throwing his socks at me, but he just wouldn't listen. He because a little fussy at the start of the meeting, so Dina had to step outside the room to keep him entertained.
The topic was Design in Miniature, and covered my experience designing the user interfaces for the various versions of Kasparov Chessmate. I had written up the presentation over a month ago, and dusted it off after the move.
On the whole, this wasn't a bad for a first attempt. I'm certainly not a polished speaker, but I'm also not nervous speaking in front of crowds. I used the Powerpoint presentation as my speaking notes, and went through the whole presentation in about forty minutes.
Much to my relief, nobody fell asleep, and the questions at the end of the session were all pertinent and interesting. Most people were interested in how the games were transmitted, sold and played on mobile phones.
Afterwards, we held a drawing for five copies of the game, generously donated by the Marketing department. All the recipients seems pleased with their acquisitions (and I've seen some long faces in the past, when people won prizes that weren't to their liking).
All told, a positive experience. If I'm to deliver the presentation again, I'll know now which areas need more work and polish, and how to better present the information.
Posted by Stephen