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360|Flex conferences are well known for their openness and transparency, they even tell you how much they make! In that spirit, speakers at 360|Flex Atlanta started to share their session survey results.

I received my results for 360 San Jose, and I'll share them with you. A lot of people told me during the rest of the conference that they enjoyed the session, so I was hoping to get good numbers in the survey ;)

There are some funny comments, such as this one:

She was fantastic. So small, but knows so much!

I think that is the proof that size does not matter :)

or this one, for the question, Were the slides useful?

Yes, and she was really friggin hot.

Most people found the session to be entertaining and fun, but you can get in trouble if you make fun of the atendees:

I know she was joking, but she might've offended some of the people who asked questions  [...]

If I did offend anyone, please accept my apologies. I'll try to be more tactful next time. I only recall one occasion where I made a joke and it could have sounded that I was dismissing the question (it was not my intention). He did ask more questions, so I don't think he was offended.

I am still glad people did laugh at the silly things I said, since I am normally a very shy person, and pretty serious in real life. I am also glad that I didn't get polarized responses such as somebody saying it was "great" and the next saying it was "terrible" because that's the worst feedback you can get, since it doesn't help you.

I actually enjoy giving presentations, though it requires me to prepare a lot. I am of the idea that if you don't prepare, it shows, and it doesn't give a good impression. If I am showing Mate, the impression people will get about Mate will not be good because I was not able to communicate. I also aim to inspire people. Giving a code-heavy session while being able to inspire is not an easy task. Neither is giving a code-heavy session and be able to maintain the dynamic of the talk. I get really impatient as attendee in slow sessions, so my goal is to keep the audience interested and engaged, be it by showing pictures, telling jokes, or simplifying the code to the most essential elements necessary to understand it. From the comments, I think I did achieve it, but if you have any suggestions for improvement, let me know!

Read the survey results

Laura

Laura

3 Comments

  1. Joshua
    I checked out your presentation online via AMP and it was great Laura! I would like to chat with you about giving a online presentation to the Boeing Flex User Group. I can touch base with you via email if you are interested.

    Thanks,
    Josh
  2. Tom Ortega
    It's so nice to see our speakers take on the "Transparency" mantra that John and I have taken on.

    One thing I hope this transparency encourages is other attendees that are trying to decide on whether or not to talk next time. I think many are scared that they won't score perfect on their session reviews. But you know what, there's nothing wrong with bad feedback, as it just shows us where to improve.

    John and I have publicly stated that we want reviews of the show on people's blog: the good, the bad and the ugly. If people didn't tell us what was bad, we wouldn't know what to change.

    Anyways, bravo to our speakers for sharing. And thanks again for helping make our show so special!