{"id":16478,"date":"2014-05-16T12:16:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T12:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=16478"},"modified":"2014-05-20T13:30:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T13:30:42","slug":"teched-na-2014and-the-winner-of-speaker-idol-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=16478","title":{"rendered":"TechEd NA 2014–And The Winner Of Speaker Idol Is …"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I told you<\/a> that I had qualified as a wildcard to the final of Speaker Idol in TechEd North America 2014. The judges also said I need to give them a tech talk rather than my tall tale based on photography. This would be a challenge. Other finalists would tweak existing decks that they\u2019d worked on for ages. I had to start from scratch and get it right in less than a day. The most difficult thing is \u2026 it\u2019s a 5 minute session and they time you. It\u2019s one of the judging criteria. An hour long session is much easier to prepare.<\/p>\n

So I got to the hotel on Wednesday night and started working. I knew what my topic would be: WS2012 R2 Live Migration. I had a demo script and a lab in Dublin \u2026 but there is no reliable speaker net at the podium so I would have to record my demo. VPN was too unreliable.<\/p>\n

I built up my deck. No problem there. I knew the rules: the judges expect you to stick to a format. I went to build my demo but I had some problems with PowerShell modules in my VMM-deployed labs. It took some time, but I figured them out and got the demo ready. Then Camtasia did it\u2019s thing \u2026 I remembered to record the video at eactly the screen resolution used by the big screen at the podium. One run through of the session and it was \u2026 nearly 9 minutes long. I needed to edit the deck, the demo, and me \u2026 brutally.<\/p>\n

At 00:30 I was exhausted. I set the alarm for 06:00 and slept like a baby. It was the first morning that the alarm woke me. No jetlag on Thursday. I had a few hours to get myself ready for the final at 12:30. I rehearsed again and again, finally figuring that if I said certain things at the right time in the demo, and left out others, I could hit 4 minutes 45 seconds. Perfect!<\/p>\n

So off I went to TechEd. I attended a session on Azure connectivity and thin skipped a fairly dull second slot, opting to go through my deck. I remembered something Mark Minasi told me last year \u2013 when he was not a judge. Speaker Idol judges and the audiences are a mixture of IT pros and devs. Give both audiences a hook. So I did: more service uptime and \u201cyour aps stay running while IT does stuff<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The time came. I went to the area and waited. A crowd started to gather \u2026 and then people I knew started to arrive. The Hyper-V PM team from Redmond, the Irish MVP gang (John McCabe [ex-mvp, now MSFT]), Kevin Greene, Damian Flynn), readers of my blog and twitter followers, the gang from Petri, the Ferrills (father and son tech journalists, and so many more.<\/p>\n

I was nervous. I do not get nervous when I speak. I really don\u2019t. I\u2019m comfortable speaking. I enjoy it \u2013 it\u2019s a buzz when you\u2019ve got something to share and you can see that\u00a0the audience want to hear it. But damn I was nervous. I got on stage, and completely forgot that I had a clicker on the desk. I stood with Richard Campbell (the organizer, and famed for things like RunAs Radio) as I was introduced to the crowd.<\/p>\n

\"WP_20140515_13_21_42_Pro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I realized how much of the audience were people rooting for me. I was amazed. These people took the time to come and support me. The view from the podium was so cool.<\/p>\n

My plan might work. I had 5 minutes to impress \u2026 starting now!<\/p>\n

First thing: \u201cHow is everyone? Is everyone enjoying Speaker Idol?\u201d. And they whooped. Thankfully! That got things going well. I did my intro slides and completely let the fact that I had a clicker slip out of mind. I like to get out from behind a podium so I was walking back and forth, pressing the keyboard to progress. Yuk! I did my demo and screwed up my timing and included stuff that I shouldn\u2019t have. I included the \u201cIt does stuff\u201d line and people laughed. Damn, this was going OK.<\/p>\n

I wrapped up and waited for comments. I went over 5 minutes, nearly hitting 6 minutes. Argh! I was toast. Maybe I should have trimmed the intro slide. Some comments about font and bullet points. But overall, great comments about delivery and inclusion of the audience. The dev outreach worked.<\/p>\n

I thought the guy that did the Azure talk would win. I liked his pace (I was a bit rushed) and he seemed very polished to me. I was sure I was not winning. We were all called up for the results. The judges said this was a tough one, tougher than it used to be in past years because people know what to bring now.<\/p>\n

\"WP_20140515_13_32_43_Pro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Minasi (who recused himself of voting because we are friends) announced the results. It was a non-American (there was a presenter from Finland who also did a good job). And the winner of a speaking slot in TechEd North America 2015 is \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Aidan Finn.<\/p>\n

Instantly pressure slid off. And the lack of stress left me \u2026 I was shattered. I think the stress was holding me up. Afterwards I talked for about an hour with people from all over. When it all died down I was ready to drop.<\/p>\n

A few beers were had to celebrate \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I told you that I had qualified as a wildcard to the final of Speaker Idol in TechEd North America 2014. The judges also said I need to give them a tech talk rather than my tall tale based on photography. This would be a challenge. Other finalists would tweak existing decks that they\u2019d … Continue reading “TechEd NA 2014–And The Winner Of Speaker Idol Is …”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[176,177],"class_list":["post-16478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-eventnotes","tag-events"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t