You're welcome - and thanks for your contributions to the discussions! A SQLAlchemy talk would be great, or really anything you happen to think is cool. And guilty as charged, re: reading off the slides - although I can't say that I spent much more time *making* those slides than I spent giving them. Time, as it so often does, got away from me that week, and I didn't get the time to refine the talk into a good solid dose of usable and entertaining information. Definitely making time to watch the how-to-give-a-lightning talk preso Jason sent a link out to. -B. --- On Sun, 2/14/10, Matt Feifarek wrote:

From: Matt Feifarek Subject: [Madison] Thanks for the meeting; next time? To: "Madison Python Users' Group" Received: Sunday, February 14, 2010, 3:53 PM Hi guys. Thanks for the meeting yesterday evening -- that was fun and useful. I'd like to commit to doing a 10m (or such) talk on SQLAlchemy in the future; perhaps at the March meeting, though I have some travels to work around in March. Other subjects on which I am not expert, but perhaps proficient that might be useful: virtualenv, ZODB, Mako, WingIDE. I hope that we can cram in the proposed talk on Closure one day.

FWIW w/r/t the new presentations format:I do think that the new structure idea is a good one. I like the idea of a 10m (ish) presentation but I'd propose that we allow for at least equal-time for follow-up questions and discussion before the pressure of the next talk. Perhaps we could realistically budget 30m for each, with 5 minutes for being late to start, 10-15 for show-n-tell and 10-15 for follow-up.

I think we should advertise our topics to other like-minded groups (you guys all know who they are better than me) and hope for some cross-pollination thereby.Last, I hope that the following is taken in the spirit in which I write it, and not as a criticism at all: I noticed last year at PyCon (and in other varied conferences) that some folks spend a LOT of time making a slide-based presentation, and then basically read the audience the slides. I think we all have a tendency to do this, and it makes for a comparatively poor presentation. I've certainly done it.

This tendency is outlined very well in Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint"[1]. Of course, the audience can read... better to let us skim the slides quick while one talks about the flesh of the concept, rather than read the bullet points. The slides are great, and it's a chore to set them up and a generous thing to do for all of us, but when there is only 10 minutes, I'd say that it's better to use them to frame and illustrate the discussion, rather than to be a literal script to follow. As you'll see in Tufte's essay, reading the slides also has a tendency to dumb-down the conversation, due to the data density restrictions of projected slides (have to speak in short, cryptic phrases to fit on screen).

ALSO: There was a fellow last night who mentioned co-working spaces in Madison; guy, give me a shout, perhaps we can help make one happen here in Madison. AND ALSO: I'll tell Nico Preston when I next talk with him that MadPy might be interested in helping his disaster-relief web project.

Thanks! 1: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint and though it's for-pay, it seems to be online here:

http://appl003.lsu.edu/acadaff/cxcweb.nsf/$Content/Technology%2BWorkshop%2BM...

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On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Benet Devereux wrote:

And guilty as charged, re: reading off the slides - although I can't say that I

Hi Benet; I really wasn't trying to call anyone out; more of an idea coming off of Pycon last year and a few other conferences... as a plan for the future for the 10m idea. I look forward to the next meeting.