[Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas?

[Brad Allen]

Not many have responded to this as of yet  (so far two maybes).

I'd like to suggest that you consider lighting talks to be a rule-free
zone within the hard 5 minute time limit. You don't need to restrict
your subject matter to Python;  my experience at PyCon I've seen
lighting talk topics running rampant all over the map. They are so
entertaining because they express the wide range of personality in our
community, and because the Python community is about more than just
Python. It's about what Python lets us do, and how we can help each
other get to where we want to go.

And when a lightning talk fails to entertain...so what? Just wait 5
minutes for the next talk. There's no dishonor in giving a horribly
bad or uninteresting talk; at least you tried :-). It we can adopt
that philosophy, we're more free to experiment with different talk
ideas. The result is the kind of crazy diversity which make PyCon
lightning talks so interesting (and sometimes boring!).

Last year at PyTexas I tried to give a lightning talk about the
Expando class with zero preparation...and guess what? Stink bomb. I
learned that lightning talks actually do require some preparation;
with only five minutes available, every word, keystroke and mouse
gesture counts.

At BarCamp Bangalore 2007 I gave some ad-hoc nontechnical lightning
talks which involved blathering about ideas. Those are easier and
require less preparation, but may not be as interesting.

By the way, if nobody offers to give lightning talks at PyTexas 2010,
I'm going to ask Patrick Michaud to fill the time giving Perl 6
lightning talks. He is a charismatic and energetic speaker who would
probably converted half of us into Perl adherents after five or six
lightning talks. Heed my words, for this is no idle threat!  :-)