Tag: talks

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Do not mention time when giving a talk

One of the challenges of public speaking is timing your talk.  And paying attention to that timing without distracting your audience.

Do not mention the time to the audience.
Do not say you only have 5 minutes.
Do not say you won’t take up too much of their time.
Do not point out you finished with one minute left.
Do not mention you are running a couple of minutes over.
Do not ask for a time check.

If you focus your audience’s attention on time, they will think about time, instead of the topic you’d like them to be thinking about.

The one exception is if someone is waving a huge placard saying you have 5 minutes left, distracting both you and the audience. In that case, nod to acknowledge them and go on with your talk.

You should focus on leaving your audience with one key message. And that message should not be how you are delivering your presentation unless your talk is about presenting!

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Changing roles …

As the world transitions to cloud native, Cloud Foundry is an important part of a new open source software ecosystem. Because of the open source Cloud Foundry project, companies and governments large and small are able to change the way they work, build on the knowledge of others and use technology to vastly improve the solutions they offer. Who would have thought we’d have open source software running on big windmills or as a fundamental part of the IT system at large insurance companies or as part of the new digital transformation of US, Australian and UK governments? Or that automotive, insurance, and finance companies would all collaborate on software?

I’ve enjoyed helping to make this new open source cloud world a reality by leading developer relations at the Cloud Foundry Foundation. As the next step in my journey, I will be transitioning from a paid staff role at the Cloud Foundry Foundation to a volunteer community role.

We have been putting community and processes in place at the Cloud Foundry Foundation to enable self-governing programs. Using my experience at Mozilla running and expanding the Mozilla Developer Network, as well as my experience setting up the OpenLogic Expert Community, I set up processes that will enable the Cloud Foundry community to continue to grow as the project and its large community of corporate sponsors continues to grow. For example, we created the Cloud Foundry Ambassadors, a self-sustaining program of volunteers to welcome and grow the community that is now growing organically. Cloud Foundry has grown by leaps and bounds and we now have contributors and product managers from our member companies creating and running self-governing programs for outreach and technology. I am proud of the programs we’ve created together for the Community to own and run.

The Cloud Foundry project is a vital part of our open source ecosystem and I will continue to be an active member in it, as I have with all my favorite open source software projects!

More news coming soon on what’s next for me!

P.S. Come learn about Cloud Foundry Dojos in my talk next week at All Things Open.