Favorite Technical Presentation and What Made It Great

Prompt: Favorite Technical Presentation and What Made It Great

Aubrey Chipman:

When I think back to my favorite presentation, I always go back to a specific one which excelled in the following areas: content, delivery, interaction level, and audience captivation.  The topic for the presentation was to solve a single problem in four languages, beginning in an object oriented style and terminating using functional programming.  

To begin, we were given a sample problem and told to solve it in Java, which we were all familiar with.  Easy.  One pair then displayed their solution on a projector, and the group discussed the merits of the solution.  Following this, we were presented with information about the programming language Guava (which most people had not used before), and we used this new knowledge to complete the same problem again, but using this new language, which used a different style.  After viewing a team’s solution and discussing it, we went on to continue this pattern for the languages Groovy and Scala.  At which point, we were no longer in the land of object oriented programming, but had wandered over to functional programming.  

The reason I so love this presentation was because it took a novel approach to introducing a new technical topic.  As a group, we were interested, and the presenter kept us engaged by focusing on what we could create, and when we were stuck, by delving into more details pertinent to solving the problem.  Finally, this presentation made good use of the materials at hand: a projector, a presentation with useful content, and the -often forgotten- audience itself.  

Linda Goldstein:

The most recent excellently memorable presentation memory is of an impromptu discussion of threading in the JVM, especially as it applies to Scala. We started with the question "describe how threading works" and the presenter took us through the various layers, from the kernel to processes (one of which is the JVM) to "threads" in the JVM, to java.nio and java.util.concurrent, to Actor and Future, and finally to stuff like STM, agents, and continuations. (See diagram)

The presentation was great because the speaker knew the topic very thoroughly and had opinions about the subject matter, (i.e. how each layer should be used and manipulated by developers). Also developer jokes are great. Example: "As we all know, the best process to run is the JVM!"

Using the whiteboard, especially for a technical discussion of this nature, is very helpful. Even more important to the audience than seeing the finished diagram is to see it take shape as it is live drawn. It is possible to achieve a similar (but more limited) effect by showing pre-prepared incremental slides.

Abby Bangser:

As a Quality Analyst "technical" can be a very diverse word to me. I am frustrated by people who assume technical means that code examples are included in the presentation. I believe that a technical talk is one which helps my productivity and quality of deliverable improve in a measurable and calculated way. I have sat in some amazing talks ranging from story splitting to CSS code to database types comparisons. In each of the memorable talks there was one common thread, they drove me to keep learning long after the powerpoint was shut down.

This desire to learn more could easily be attributed to my initial interest in the topic or in an immediate need for the information. This would, however, diminish the value the speaker added to these topics. In each of the most memorable presentation, the speakers put obvious effort into selecting both applicable and exciting aspects of their topics, presented them in an immediately usable way, and most importantly provided an avenue to growing in the future. Talks that brain dump all the possible permutations of a topic can be hard to parse. Presentations that brag about a specific (albeit amazing) application of a technology or practice result in the "I wish I could, but..." syndrom. And those that only provide tools/books/links end up being one long bookmarks list which never gets opened. That is why the presentations which inform me while also leaving me at the start of an interesting rabbit hole for future research are the ones I am always in awe of.