Because I'm an optimist, I submitted a few talks to FOSDEM in the hope one might be accepted. Because I'm lucky, I got two speaking slots. Because I'm an idiot, I decided to do both talks. On the same day. An hour apart. On opposite ends of the venue. Fool! My first talk was at the Social Web Birds-of-a-Feather session. I told people about my ActivityBot social networking server and how I…
Continue reading →
I was delighted to be invited to speak at FOSDEM. And I was not at all intimidated to be speaking on the cavernous Janson stage. The audience were lovely, asked interesting questions, and - most importantly - laughed in all the right places 😅. Regular readers will recognise this as being an updated version of the talk I gave at EMF 2024 - feel free to watch that one if you want to see if I've im…
Continue reading →
I recently gave an online presentation at Tech Nottingham. It went off without a hitch, and I got some great feedback. I'd like to briefly discuss the tech that I used to make it all work. Here's "mission control": On the left portrait monitor, I had two windows. The top one was Zoom, running in Chrome (more on that later). This was what I was presenting from. I kept it on screen so that I…
Continue reading →
I go to lots of hack days and hackathons. Some are big corporate affairs, some are boutique community events. They all have one thing in common - Geeks suck at giving demos. You have 3 minutes to convince the judges - or your peers - that you've built something brilliant. How do you do that? One Hundred and Eighty Seconds. It is not a lot of time. So here are my top 3 tips for succeeding at a…
Continue reading →
I do lots of public speaking as part of my job. I'd like to share one of my tips for giving engaging and impactful talks. Two caveats: This is a sort-of work post. In that, I'll be discussing something I did for my employer - but they haven't asked me to write this, nor have they reviewed it. Just because this works for me, doesn't mean it is right for you. Sometimes you have to find your own…
Continue reading →
At a science-fiction convention, you queue for hours to hear a bit-part actor describe what it was like on the set of a forgotten sci-fi show. At a science-fact convention, you have a beer with a person who is literally changing the world with a laser cutter, some diodes, and a smattering of Python. Welcome to ElectroMagnetic Field! (I've stolen the subtitle from Ken MacLeod's description of…
Continue reading →
Yesterday, I gave my first TEDˣ Talk. It was organised by my employers, Telefonica in order to showcase innovative thinking throughout the business (usual work/personal disclaimers apply). I don't want to go into too much detail about how amazing the day was - or the incredible talks that I heard my colleagues give. I'd like to talk a little about preparation. What I think goes in to making a …
Continue reading →
I've taken a bit of a break from the conference circuit. With my previous job at InMobi I was attending 10 different events per month (on average). Some were merely hosting, others were presenting. It got really tiring after a while. As much as I love the UK tech scene, it can be a bit repetitive to see the same faces and answer the same questions over and over again. It also took a toll on…
Continue reading →
It's always an odd experience to watch yourself speak. Everyone - I think - finds the sound of their own voice really odd. I'm no exception! This is the video from the Derby Museum Backstage Pass where we gave the first public demonstration of QRpedia. The Video Video shot by Nick Moyes. The Slides All slides are a work in progress. This is a close approximation of what was presented on …
Continue reading →
This is the presentation I gave for OpenTech 2010 Opentech updated from Terence Eden If you're on mobile, you can view the mobile friendly version of the slides. Here's the audio of the talk. 🔊 OpenTech2010 Presentation: Why Doesn't Your Site Work On My Mobile Phone🎤 edent 💾 Download this audio file. The gist of the talk is - more people have mobile web enabled phones than ha…
Continue reading →
I was honoured when David Wood asked me to present at his first "brown bag" lunch lecture at Accenture. Normally I would run through a presentation of this length at several different venues and thoroughly hone it before presenting at a high profile event. As you'll see from the slides and video, it's still a bit rough round the edges. I based this talk on Jonathan Zittrain's excellent Future…
Continue reading →
