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Is Geek Speak an international language? I would have to say yes. As one who's native language is English, and one who only knows key words and phrases in other languages, I was actually able to attend a German speaking event and for the most part figure out what was being discussed, and for the parts I couldn't, everyone was more than willing to translate for me, which in itself was unbelievable.
A few months back Ramzy Mansour from Citrix Dublin and Markus Klein from Citrix Germany contacted me about the possibility of me presenting at Citrix TechEdge 2009 in Munich. Sadly, with all that was going on at the time, or that would be going on during the event time frame, that didn't pan out. If you aren't aware, there were multiple things going on at almost the same time, or back to back. We had Synergy 09 in Las Vegas, PubForum in Dublin, iForum in Edinburgh, iForum in Benelux, and iForum in Munich. If I could only make virtual copies of myself...
The big draw for me in Munich was that they had also planned a Geek Speak track. When I first heard about it, I was very excited to hear that they were interested in doing one, and that they also were going to have one. It really showed that the whole Geek Speak concept is growing, and that people really want to participate in the presentation and conversation, which is so hard to do in most presentation styles as they are usually a one way presentation.
The following were presentations for Geek Speak at TechEdge 2009 Munich:
- Die Zukunft von Citrix XenApp:
Alexander Yushenko
Dr. Bernhard Tritsch
Markus Hogenkotter
Markus Klein
- XenApp 64-bit oder 32-bit auf einem Hypervisor:
Helge Klien
Ulrich Stamm
- Das Windows Nutzerporfil - das unbekannte Wesen?
Sascha Juch
Thomas Kotzing
- Terminal Services vs. VDI: Wann macht welche Losung Sinn?
Martin Maierhofer
Nico Ludermann
Previous to the TechEdge 2009 Munich event, I was attending the PubForum 2009 Dublin event. It was kind of funny to see many people who attended that event, were also attending the Munich event, some of whom also gave presentation there. One such person was Gary Barton from Citrix America, who also did presentations at both events.
I was completely amazed by how well the Geek Speak event was organized, they actually one upped the event, in that we have in the past given the presenters a standard power point in which to work with.
The creative fellows for this event, used Microsoft Onenote as a replacement to powerpoint, which went right in line with James Rabey, the founder of Geek Speak, had originally stated, which was that there should be no power point presentations, unless absolutely needed, as it should be all about the dialog. I remember the first Geek Speak that we held, at Synergy 08 in Houston, and how we had microphones to give to the audience, and I got to tell you the thought that went into Geek Speak at TechEdge Munich was on the money in true Geek Speak fashion. They provided a venue in which industry experts were presenting and being engaged in full on dialog from the attendees, I couldn't have been more ecstatic about seeing how engaged the audience was at this event. Remember that language issue I have, well I didn't get all of that was spoken, but one thing was crystal clear, Geek Speak at Citrix TechEdge 2009 Munich was awesome!
I will be posting more about TechEdge 2009 Munich with more thoughts and photos, so please stay tuned over the next week.
For more information about Citrix TechEdge/iForum 2009 Munich click below:
http://www.citrix-eventservice.de/iforum2009/
Comments (3)
Jun 19
Rene Vester says:
You should learn to speak the German language Rich But i guess the time hascom...You should learn to speak the German language Rich
But i guess the time hascome to bring GeekSpeak to all parts of the world for you guys? Language barrier-test.. passed.. or so it would seem
/René
Jun 21
Anonymous says:
Hi Rich, it's great to see you are still able to get around to all these events....Hi Rich, it's great to see you are still able to get around to all these events. I would have loved to have been at TechEdge Munich myself, at least I would have understood more of what was being said in German
.
When Laura and I originally came up with the idea of Geek Speak, we actually imagined a large event with multiple formats running simultaneously - presenters on stage (even with powerpoint
), collections of tables for small discussions, labs etc. From what I have seen, Geek Speak @ Synergy 09 has come the closest to that vision. That being said, the "Geek Speak Local" events we initiated with with the help of Micheal K, Rene V, Ruben S and Javier S are an important development as they create an opportunity to combine the informality and directness that local events have had for years with the organization and reach of Geek Speak. And from reading Laura's blog on Pubforum plus the upcoming Iowa event, she is also maintaining the momentum that we originally envisaged and launched.
The key to making this work is to understand that no matter how informal the content is, it has to be thoroughly organized and planned. This is a difficult job to do as you need to combine flexibility in order to allow constant changes to content with military like planning to ensure there is a constant flow of discussion avoiding the audience sitting around in silence while a presenter fiddles with their laptop
. This is the approach that we have adhered to with the resullting success that you know so well.
-James Rabey
Jun 22
Rich Crusco says:
Hello Mr. Rabey Great to hear from you and that you are still involved and foll...Hello Mr. Rabey
Great to hear from you and that you are still involved and following Geek Speak, and yeah it is a real honor to always take part in the events, even if they are in another language.
Its interesting that even with all that we know, there are always lessonsed to be learned from each event, in that what works for one audience might not work for the next, and then there is the whole venue variable.
Drop me a line some time, and maybe we can have a phone chat
Rich
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