This is the twelfth time that the A2Geeks, a local nonprofit group that is “dedicated to enriching Ann Arbor for creative and innovative people to live, work and play,” has sponsored this series of Ignite talks. In the past, I avoided doing one because it seemed so easy to make a fool of oneself. This time, however, I decided to bite the bullet and just go for it.
The result you see above. I didn’t make a total fool of myself, but I could have done better. My first mistake was trying to talk about too much. I probably could have left out a couple of slides and run two or three of them twice, giving me fewer things to talk about.
My next big mistake was not practicing enough. I can babble on talk about pretty much anything amateur radio-related for a half hour to 45 minutes at the drop of a hat. Condensing that to five minutes takes a lot of work, and synchronizing the text with the slides is even more work. You can tell, especially towards the end of the talk, that I got rushed, and my voice sounds nervous.
Having said that, I’m already thinking about doing a talk at Ignite Ann Arbor #13, whenever that is. I’m thinking about tackling Morse Code. WATSA OMs?