VSLive! Day 2

I didn’t get a chance to blog about the morning keynote by Eric Rudder, but plenty of others have, including Sam, Rocky, and Richard.

I went to hear the Don Box and Steve Schwartz breakout session on Indigo. Don wrote some Indigo code with VB.NET – I have pictures to prove it. Indigo is looking exciting – but during the presentation I became a bit distracted. I realized in a few hours I’d be giving my presentation in the same building as these people - felt a bit humbled - wondered what I had gotten myself into - and went off to do some rehearsing at the hotel.

I think my presentation went well – I had a few good comments afterwards. I guess I’ll know more when the evaluations are tallied. One tip I can heartily recommend is to have the first 5 minutes of a presentation down cold. I rehearsed my first 5 minutes endless times. I could have spoken for the first 5 minutes even if a herd of zebras ridden by scantily clad dancing girls had broken into the room and paraded around. The 5 minutes I spent operating in “automatic mode” gave me time to get used to the microphone, the lights, the audience, and got me through the sometimes awkward introductory phase. After 5 minutes I'm into the meatier part of a presentation and can just start talking about what I know.

At this point I could prepare for tomorrow’s flight by packing, or I can go join the evenings festivities.

Easy choice, this one.