You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve
Len Peralta has a fantastic project going called Monster By Mail. You send him a few bucks and a name, and he draws you a monster. And for another few bucks, he’ll do a time lapse video of your creation coming to life. Of course, I couldn’t resist. Here’s the one I commissioned, paired perfectly with one of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs. Thanks, Len!
Scott Bekun is writing a book for O’Reilly Media, due out in October, called Confessions of a Public Speaker. He’s asking for stories of public speaking disasters. I couldn’t help but add a couple of my own.
Story 1: Always Carry a Thumb Drive
I was doing a day-long session on Community Design and had prepared an extensive set of PowerPoint slides with copious notes on my Mac laptop. But when I got to the venue a few minutes before it was set to begin, we realized that my laptop would not work with their projector, and I had to move the presentation to their PC computer. We all looked at the two computers with a feeling of doom and impotence. How to get the file from one to the other?
One of the conference techs ran off in search of a burnable CD. Another went looking for an ethernet cable. I stood there frozen in fear.
Then someone from the first row of the audience stepped up and said, “Excuse me, would this help?” and handed me a small USB thumb drive. We transferred the file and all was well.
Now, when I speak, I have a handful of those thumb drives in my backpack, just in case.
Story 2: Make Sure They Know What You’re Talking About
In 1997, after I’d been working at the highly influential HotWired website for a year or so, I went back to my alma matter to give a talk to a web design class about working in the nascent web industry.
I stood in front of the class and told what I thought were highly entertaining stories about life at HotWired for a half hour. When I finally stopped and asked if anyone had questions, one hand meekly raised in the back.
