27 dinner – Vince's review
Posted on 29. Jul, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle, Marketing
I’d waited anxiously for this the 28th of July, upon which the 26th 27 dinner would take place. Anxious only because that is the feeling I get when I know that I’m going to have to subject my evening to the abject horror of “socializing”. Nope I’m kidding, I was just excited to hear Charl Norman gloat about his own success – which he sadly never did.
The evening started off with a little haggling with the waiter, he wanted to give me two filter coffees and a Windhoek Lager, and I man of simple tastes just wanted my bloody coffee without all the extras. Don’t let me get started on something which is inconsequential; I have a poor habit of prevaricating when the moment calls for lucid clarity and precise thought. Shut up, I’m saying to myself!
Yes we were there, at table Cerebra, with the cool cats who are at the forefront of enterprise 2.0. I knew the line up; but the sudden appearance of Roy Blumenthal and his drawing tablet – which I couldn’t help but gaze at like a magpie might at a golden tooth in the Cape Flats caught me off guard. Definitely great to have someone who could translate the oft complex right – brained theoretical musings of the speakers into something for the lefties.
Lets get to the gist of this observational review; I was a little let down by Kate Elphick who I thought could have made her points a little clearer, as my ex lecturer would have said “a little too much on the slides I’m afraid – I couldn’t help but read ahead of you”. I guess if I wanted to know how to bathe in pools of my own dosh I’d have studied something else, so kudos to Kate for attempting to school us in the art of web 2.0 entrepreneurship. Lets just hope she doesn’t end off her next presentation with the “e-funeral” idea, as it left our table mourning the loss of a great idea..
Jason was up next; and as I’d read a little about user experience sort of had some idea of what he might pitch to us. I was wrong on most accounts and whilst I think his theoretical approach is vital, I think he could have grounded it more in real world user-experience application. Furthermore the bridge between market research (which he alluded to) and user-experience isn’t a bridge at all, we are one and the same and perhaps instead of re-branding techniques / methodologies of basic qualitative market research we should endeavour to do a little co-branding and unify the two fields..Food for thought I hope.
Charl; who I could tell was a little tired was interrupted by the constant whoops and interjections of a certain American man,who made me irate and as he stomped “aboot” our table demanding service from the manager and thus I was perhaps a little distracted. Charl, whilst focusing on what appeared to be a presentation on BlueWorld’s offerings threw out some very poignant tips on luring consumer’s eyeballs; I loved the “free sms” campaign as this is sharp marketing and excellent use of available and cheap resources to attract users. What I found most fascinating was his “can do attitude” which sounds hopelessly cliché; but his suggestion that the “blue-world engine” could be applied to whatever social – network required it was something I found startling realistic. Why re-invent the wheel? He’s talking business and not web 2.0 crazy talk like so many others. Well done Charl, I wish you all the best.
Lastly there was me; I entertained myself with my witty sarcastic reppertoir, and I listened intently to my commentary and I commented on my own mental-blog and said a few hail-mary’s because I knew that my genius was almost peverse.
Mike thank you for putting this event together; I’m sure those of us who might always consider themselves “still learning” appreciate your efforts to gather together such a quirk-e bunch. It is incredible opportunity to bump minds with some fascinating individuals; even if this time I was vicariously socializing whilst sitting in my chair pretty damned tired and ready to go on leave..Your next whiskey / coffee or combo cofskey is on me!
Peace out julle.
Saulk on http://www.mikestopforth.com just added this awesome idea which I hope he doesn’t mind me rehashing here :
Saulk (http://saulk.co.za) suggests :
3) Debate of some sort would be awesome. Also, a way to take the dinner “online” would be great. In a sense a way to continue the debate online.
Of course I don’t mind!
I think it’s a great idea
Can you high five yourself without feeling ashamed? I can!
Thanks for the entertaining write-up, as always
Yeah I’m terribly sorry about the one or two rude people, and or noisy upstairs parties, that make it tough for the rest of the group but we’re doing our best to avoid such disappointments.
Cofskey sounds damn good…
Hey Vince!
Nice write-up. We didn’t get to even say hello, not sure how that happened! Wanted to chat but it just never happened. Yea, I was sitting behind the IRRITATING American who insisted on talking through EVERY presentation and then insisted on asking questions to the presenters who had just disrespected immensely. I was pretty peeved with him too.
Mike – Great event and fantastic to see close on 100 ppl attending. Really a step up, you are doing a sterling job.
Think Saul’s idea is spot on. A panel of some sorts would be great, I think maybe one key speaker and a panel to compliment the topic would suffice. However it would need to be a much quieter venue for this.
Good point Nic; I think Primi’s perfect for the informality of the event. I actually asked the manager about the people upstairs and it sounded like they were as unruly as the American-imperialist. The manager did however suggest he might be open to booking the venue out; perhaps he was under a bit of pressure and had been inhaling “spirit-burdened” rantings of our guests…
Nevertheless; it would rock to be able to enter into a debate with some of our media personalities, often times I think the audience is a little wary of saying “what the hell was he / she talking about” because as I’ve noted the space in which communicate whilst friendly is often very competitive. Some would rather eat their own spleen than admit to not knowing “everything about everything”.
I think Jason definitely needed someone to ask him questions about implementation of UX, it holds such promise for all of us in the business of innovation.
Thanks for the mention bud, not one of my best performances but it was a tough venue.. very noisy
Hi there Vince
Thank you for your comments; it is always a little tricky to know where the audience is. My slides were probably too wordy; I wanted to make them understandable if they were read without the presenter.
In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have ended with the Memorial site, it was not the right audience and I probably had two presentations in one.
What is interesting though is how culturally when I present the concept I get two very different reactions. When I present Memorial Wall to the audience it is designed for (Generally marginalised/historically disadvantaged groups) it is warmly embraced. I get comments like “At last a site that is relevant to us”.
If I present the site to the business community I get the feedback that it is morbid and people aren’t comfortable with what they see as profiting from death.
When developing presentations it would be useful if attendees posted their interests or questions on the 27 site and speakers could address specific issues.
Your presentation was interesting, but I agree, competing with Harry met Sally upstairs was difficult.
K
Hi there Kate – I’m afraid you must be mistaken I am neither Charl nor Jason who presented, my presentable presence was felt as always though.
As to your points about your audience’s reaction to the concept of an e-ulogy. I think your observation about “culture” is a little too simplistic; your approach is that of a westerner and your assumptions are framed by those values with which you judge others. This is not a knock on you; we all live in that unfortunately inescapable bubble; our language prescribes value and it is taught to us by those institutions (family, school, friends) which we are raised with, in, or alongside of.
So lets unpack your assumptions; a) black people are dying and giving an adequate burial / funeral is expensive b) “death” and “remembrance” is interpreted differently by different cultures / races and finally c) white people consider an “e-funeral” as – I’ll use a euphemism – “awkward”.
Then lets go back to your statement : “When I present Memorial Wall to the audience it is designed for (Generally marginalised/historically disadvantaged groups) it is warmly embraced.” The marginalised / displaced population you speak of are black people react equally as poorly. I asked my colleagues – black diamonds if you subscribe to that sweeping label – “what about this idea” and they reacted like the white audience did. Firstly they were surprised, then shocked and finally suspicious. Suspicious because peering through the idea of an e-memorial is not very difficult if you understand the capitalist system, and is far easier still if you’ve worked in it, been educated to endorse its woeful meritocratic prejudices and finally been forced to embrace it to earn your keep.
The audience you speak of is dwindling because as we incorporate more of our population into a rigorous schooling system with sustainable curricula – please god let this happen – the odds of you selling e-memorials to the “poor” irrespective of race / ethnicity / culture or other identity-descriptors will be lessened.
I welcome your rebuttal, if you re-configure this idea as the “free-e-funeral” then send me the mail and I’ll be the first one to sign up.
Hiya Folks…
Roy Blumenthal, the visual facilitator here.
THE IRRITATING AMERICAN
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If I’m not mistaken, the ‘irritating American’ was Brian Carl Brown, Chief Operating Officer of http://www.bluecatalyst.co.za. Are we talking about the guy who spoke about the golf day that noone wanted to attend??? If so, then yeah… Brian Carl Brown’s yer man.
His colleague came up to me while I was wrapping up my drawing and live-blogging of the event, and proposed that Blue Catalyst and I might do some business together. I thought it would be a good idea. And we agreed to have talks about talks.
Shortly after the chat, Brian cannon-balled up to me, and announced, ‘I think my colleague might not have gotten the point across. We’re an NGO, and we don’t have big budgets for our events, which are free.’ Blah blah blah, poverty, blah blah, etcetera. ‘So actually, we can’t afford to pay you R8500 for a half-day’s visual facilitation, or R12500 for a full-day. We haven’t got money to pay you for the freebies. But if you do those, we might be able to get you some paying gigs. You get my drift?’
At that point, I was no longer listening. I work for a living. And the guy’s attitude was actually pretty sucky. (But I think the presence of alcohol at events like this is a MAJOR contributor to the crapheadedness of some of the people present.)
KATE ELPHICK’S TALK
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Kate… You really really really really need to take a look at Garr Reynolds’s site, PRESENTATION ZEN. Seriously. http://presentationzen.com.
One concept. One slide. One picture. No words, or VERY few words. Three or four words max. Your slide is a billboard for an idea. It’s not an academic treatise to be read and mulled over. A presentation is real-time. It gives people the argument, supported by the facts.
Your presentation was very dense, and difficult to follow, for me.
I was also pretty alarmed at what I assume MUST have been my mishearing a stat your quoted. I THINK you said that the average black South African attends two funerals a week. If that’s the case, I REALLY have to see your sources. And you really need to quote those sources. And you need to qualify what that stat actually means. I’m surrounded by some fairly average black South Africans, and, anecdotally evidenced, they absolutely DO NOT attend even two funerals a MONTH. let alone a week.
Re the cultural bias of the audience… hmmmm…. nope. GONG. That’s spurious. Your presentation needs to be targeted at the people you’re talking to. So if you’re talking to an audience of whitey business people, you’d best find the argument that speaks to those people. Show the business-types video footage of the amazing response you’re claiming your black audiences give you. Deliver on your premise.
I support Vince’s reading of your argument. I feel you’re making several untested and unsupported assumptions, and you’re really not making that argument ‘come to life’. (Yeah… pun intended.)
JASON HOBBS AND INTERFACE DESIGN
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I like Jason. I know him in the real world. But I don’t think his preso cut it.
It started promisingly, with some really cool, simple, single-minded, focused slides, that we pretty much pictures illustrating a single point he was making. From around his third slide, the discipline disappeared. And he fell into the trap of cramming way too much stuff onto the slide, with almost NO logic to how things connected.
A presenter must NEVER have to apologise for the contents of their presentation being unreadable. Dammit. Those slides that he kept apologising for would have been unreadable in a pitch-black room on a high definition television screen. If you can’t read your own slide on your computer screen, how the hell are we going to see it on a pasty big screen?
Jason also fell into the trap of telling us WAY too much about his topic. He brain-dumped his knowledge on us. And used ultra-lame examples to ground it. Google and iPhone are NOT great examples of UI. They are great examples of very specific points about UI.
Hone it down, dude. Choose ONE topic, and tell us about that.
CHARL NORMAN, BLUEWORLD
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Charl has stated in tweets and in these comments and elsewhere that he felt his presentation was weak.
I think he’s probably being a tad hard on himself. For me, his talk was passionate, engaging, real, and grounded. I felt that he was sharing his thoughts with me as a conversation partner. He wasn’t brain-dumping. He wasn’t spewing facts and figures. He wasn’t making unsupported arguments.
What he WAS doing was putting his expertise and experience on the table, and inviting others to share in his interpretation of his own successes. Case study stuff.
Very nicely done.
MICROPHONE TECHNIQUE
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One thing ALL of the presenters can learn about is microphone technique.
Here are the rules:
1. ALWAYS do a sound check. ALWAYS. Do NOT simply grab the mic and try to be audible. Every mic requires a specific approach to getting the best sound out of it. Did anyone else feel their ears disintegrating at the plosive ‘p’ sounds cranking out at full volume? That’s avoidable. And easy to deal with.
2. NEVER tell an audience that you don’t like using microphones. CHARL! We’re there to HEAR you. Make it a JOY for us. We’re not interested in your discomfort. And we’re not interested in excuses. You HAVE something valuable to say. So embrace the platform, and do it.
3. Most microphones can be dealt with in one of two ways. EITHER put the mic in your hand with your fingers curled up just below the ball of the mic. Then extend your thumb out, and place it on your chin. This puts the mic directly in front of your bottom lip, an inch or so away from the pop-cap. MOST mics work best like this. Keeping your thumb extended in this way keeps the mic in position, and reminds you that you’re talking to an audience who are hanging on your every word.
OR, put the mic ON your cheek, touching the corner of your mouth. Yes… that part of your mouth that gets little white spit flecks when you get old. Angle it slightly towards your lips, and keep it pressed to your skin. This only works for some mics. But when it works, it completely removes plosive pops.
4. PROJECT, people. Just cos you’ve got a mic doesn’t mean you can talk like someone with emphysema. Projecting comes from working your diaphragm. Go for voice lessons if you can’t get your voice to carry to the other end of a boardroom. And speak into the microphone with booming clarity, enunciation, and conviction.
THE NOISY CROWDS AND DRUNK ASSHOLES
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Mike… this is directed towards you as the Joburg dude.
The organiser of an event needs to control the event. You must not be embarrassed to tell obnoxious winos to shut the fuck up. It’s NOT acceptable for speakers to be whooped at. It’s not acceptable for drunk Americans to hog the mic for a golf-day that geeks aren’t interested in. It’s not acceptable for a venue to allow a rowdie party upstairs to noise-out a gig. It’s the organiser’s duty to deal with these things. Throw people out if you have to. Call a halt to proceedings until things are sorted.
Speakers… YOU have a duty to pause in your talk if the conditions make it impossible to be heard. BUT… you also have a duty to make sure that your talk is fascinating and captivating. SOMETIMES people fidget and chat because the content and/or delivery of your talk is crap. Face this as a fact. Of course, sometimes, it’s just the presence of a loud-mouthed drunkard overpowering an otherwise appreciative audience. Don’t get so caught up in trying to deliver your message that you fail to see what’s happening.
Desperation in a speaker is contagious. And becomes disastrous quite quickly. Learn how to deal with interruptions. Read up on heckling, and how standup comics deal with it. If you don’t, you’re letting yourself down. More importantly, you’re letting your audience down.
STORMHOEK
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Ban alcohol at business networking events.
Seriously. The number of puke-smelling breaths that blasted into my face as people leered over my shoulder into my tablet-pc all merges into a nightmare swamp of inebriated dumbfuckery.
I have nothing against people getting plastered on their own terms, in their own environment. But when they’re attending a geek dinner, aimed at helping them expand their circle of acquaintances, I’d really ask them to question their methods if those methods include quaffing industrial quantities of free wine.
What’s the deal? Are they so poor they can’t afford their OWN wine? Are they so low on self-esteem that the only way they can derive enough bravery to speak to another person is if they’re falling down with pissedness?
Ask yourself this: If YOU were blasting YOUR wine-fumes (vomit-smell, by the way) into someone’s face, would you expect them to take you seriously as a business contact? If so… drink away. But stay away from me. If not… then decline the refill of the Stormhoek blogging sensation.
27 DINNERS
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I wonder if the zero-pricing of the event isn’t building in an ethos of ‘I’m here for myself only, and there are no consequences to me acting like an ass-wad, and I’d love to guzzle eight litres of free Stormhoek plonk, and I’ll make a noise if I wanna, and I’ll grab the mic when I can’?
Maybe if people were paying for the event, they’d take the speakers more seriously?
What if people were able to get a sliding scale refund based on the crapness of the speakers? If all three speakers are collectively voted as crap by the audience, then they get a full refund. And speakers get a cut of the proceedings, so that they are incentivised to deliver great material. (They can give those proceedings to a charity, if they’re not in it for the bucks.)
I’ve been to two 27 Dinners now. Jon Foster Pedley’s was the first, and he had the discipline of using Pecha Kutcha as the basis of his preso. And that made it work really powerfully for the audience. This past one also worked for me, but only cos I was working overtime at trying to pull out salient bits in my visual facilitation. I think if I’d been a member of the audience, the only talk I would have paid attention to would have been Charl Norman’s. The other two were simply not gripping enough, and not polished enough, and didn’t contain enough of an argument to be compelling.
You can take a look at my live-blog of the evening here: http://schmucknews.blogspot.com/2008/07/live-visual-facilitation-coverage-of-27.html
Blue skies
love
Roy
Roy,
I think you need to manage your expectations of the 27dinners. They’re not professional business networking events. That’s what First Tuesday is for, and you pay for that. They were born out of a desire to see geeks and business people interact and maybe even collaborate surrounded by good food, drink and with a few informal talks thrown in as added value. Most dinners cost us money, so there is very little commercial drive behind it.
Primi gives us their venue for free (unfortunately I don’t have a spare R 6000 to spend on a better, us-only venue). Speakers are ordinary people, speaking on something they are passionate about and by invitation. Sure I agree that sometimes this is abused and people speak for too long and I’m working on ways to correct this. One could argue that you should not have arrived with no screen to project on to as a professional visual facilitator, but in the spirit of the 27dinners I didn’t take issue with the dowels and sheet!?
Trust me, it’s not easy organising the whole thing on your own. Though please understand I am making it a priority to work on all of these issues.
This was the last dinner though, having said all this, that:
1. Anyone will make an announcement without prior arrangement
2. Speakers can speak without a time limit – we’ll actually show the time and stop them at 20 min (absolutely max)
3. More than one speaker will speak – in future we’ll have a speaker and a panel, and maybe one other activity.
And so on.
Hope that helps…
Hiya Mike…
I really didn’t mean to have you feel attacked. My comments are aimed in two directions:
1. Speakers need to up their games.
2. When things go awry, organisers (that is, you) need to be unafraid to take action.
If this comes across to you as an attack, I really do apologise, dude. It’s not meant that way.
As I saw it, this particular post was taking a healthy and critical view of the event, and I felt that I had something to contribute to that.
Re my arriving without a screen… phshew, dude. I really don’t think that’s a comment that was called for. Normally when I do a visual facilitation, it’s for corporates, and we use their equipment. I figured on bringing the ‘Boy Scout’ solution as a last resort.
Having said that, next time I arrive to do a volunteer-gig, and there’s no screen, I WILL have my own proper one.
Your thinking re how to run the next 27 Dinner seems very cool, Mike. I think that’ll stop the loudmouths in their tracks.
Thanks for hearing my comments.
Blue skies
love
Roy
Yeah sorry mate I guess I get a little emotional when something I’ve put a lot of energy into gets a working over.
With regards to the screen, the point you made about speakers needing to be more professional (or the whole show needing to be more professional) is in a gentle balance with the ethos and culture of the dinners (informal and generally rowdy). I was simply saying that if anyone was critical of you (which they weren’t), that would have been the critique if we were applying the same rules.
Btw, my screen is always available if you want to use it
Yo Mike (and everyone who creates 27 Dinners)…
I apologise for making my comments sound smug and blunt and horrid. They really weren’t meant to be that, and they weren’t meant to be an attack.
In my head, as I was writing, I thought I was being witty, provocative, informative, constructive. Reading back, I actually sound like a frothing dick. Hopefully I’m no syphilitic Mugabe.
I saw Vince’s post, saw the comments here, saw that people were offering feedback, and saw that the feedback was being received. So I wanted to add to the pot.
As you know, I’m a big supporter of the spreading of knowledge for free. Everything I write and draw that’s not under a commercial contract is open source. So for me, 27 Dinners is an awesome initiative.
My comments probably come from a primal part of my brainstem. I’ve encountered really bad presentations all through my business life. Even the MOST creative ad agencies and communication houses LOVE ‘death-by-powerpoint’. And it frustrates me that so many people continue to embrace poor visual communication.
It’s always reallllllllllllllly tricky for me to put my neck on the block by offering critical feedback of events. My income derives from the very people I’m being critical of. And I know nobody likes to come across as sucky. And I know that sucky is a completely personal judgement call.
When you mentioned my makeshift ’screen’, at first I was jolted in a negative way. I thought, ‘Sheesh! I was doing my best!’ About one second later, I thought, ‘Fuckit. Mike was also doing his best. And everyone at the 27 Dinner also did their best. Including the drunk American.’ And then, about nine seconds later, I thought, ‘Mike’s right. I’m putting myself out there as a professional visual facilitator. And I didn’t even bring my own screen. Shoddy, Roy, shoddy.’
The only reason I didn’t buy the same screen you have from Makro on Sunday is that I found it won’t fit in my car (I’m in a Mazda MX5, and I need something a bit more portable to get in there along with my other equipment).
So I’m on the hunt right now for something that folds up, rather than something that rolls up. What I’m primarily visualising is one of those round screens, much like the sun guard you get for cars. You know the kind of thing… a metal rim that kinda bends into a small, flat disk, with the screen folded into it. Any ideas where to find such a thing?
So to everyone who I probably offended, I apologise for the offence.
At the same time, I do believe that we can all up our game. More than that… we MUST up our game. Myself included.
Blue skies
love
Roy
If I could have predicted that my “review” of the 27 dinner was to result in the above perhaps I’d have been hesitant to write it; but thank god I couldn’t have predicted the future as we’d have lost such poignant positive critique.
What surprises me most, excuse me for reminiscing back to the bad old days of “internet communication” is that the critique which underlies the emotive commentary trailing off of the end of my blog could perhaps have been lost should pride have come before logic.
Roy and Mike do you think that perhaps a “guidelines” section on the 27 dinner could be constructed, using what you both know; Roy your understanding of visual presentations and Mike yours on verbal presentations. You both seem so comfortable in your respective fields it would be amazing to transfer that to young upstarts such as myself…
Roy is a good writer.
There were flashes of this in his first comment: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey
Hiya Leon…
I don’t understand the link you’ve offered. It goes to a Guardian post written by someone pissed off with having the letter ‘a’ subbed out of a review of his. Not sure why you’ve linked to it.
Blue skies
love
Roy
Leon’s comment makes perfect sense if you read it like so:
“There were flashes of this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey) in his first comment.”
Roy, I thought you’d be able to solve this riddle. It appears this Leon guy is either an ingenious spammer or confused..So confused he’s drowning in it.
Speaking of liars / spammers and bastards, wonder what is brewing in the Zuma trial? I passed a bus carrying an entire load of his supporters on the way back from Durban, poor people looked quite tired from all of that indoctrination and sloppy rhetoric.
Nope. I’ve even searched the site for my name, thinking maybe I wrote a comment there long ago. But nothing seems to surface.
Leon doesn’t seem to be a spammer. I’ve gone to his site, and he’s followed me on Twitter. I think he’s legit. I suspect some sorta cut-and-paste error.
@ Paul Jackobson: dubiously named?! And that from a lawyer? Talk about the pot calling the kettle tin arse – only there’s no kettle involved. I’m just going to say that that was uncalled for. Any more will probably land me in court.
Sweet, a debate would be brilliant.
Scariest comment thread I’ve ever read.
How did this get to the front page of MF? Confused the crap out of me until I realised it was a year old.
@Roy Blumenthal, well written – this is a great blog trail – great piece by vh, good rebuttals from the folks – especially liked your piece