We Are Ready For Risk-Taking Presenters

June 2, 2011. I woke up around 5:00 AM, got dressed, left my cruise ship cabin and went downstairs to find a place to write about the dream I’d just had: A database murdered. Suspects isolated together on a ship. Technical sleuthing.

I knew immediately this was a presentation I needed to give. It would be a huge departure from anything I’d done before. And I wanted to do it on the biggest stage I knew of: the PASS Summit.

Four and a half years later, I did exactly that; I presented SQL Server Mystery Hour: Dead Reports Don’t Talk at the PASS Summit. It’s been a couple of months since the Summit; the euphoria has worn off, and I want to share some of the risks I took — both in getting there and delivering the session — and why that matters to you as a presenter (or potential presenter).

Risks i’m glad i took

Field Testing: I had to run this session several times before feeling reasonably confident I could do it at the Summit. That meant delivering it at SQL Server User Group meetings and SQLSaturdays. They didn’t always go well — sometimes I was done in 45 minutes (too quickly), sometimes I read my lines very obviously just so I didn’t miss something important. I had to learn what worked and what didn’t, and the only way to find out was to do it live.

Call for Speakers: I started submitting my SSRS mystery session to events in 2012, but I also submitted conventional sessions at the same time. I was competing with myself as well as all the other abstracts in that track. This year, if selected, would be my fifth year speaking at the PASS Summit. I hoped my established speaker history might make the Program Committee trust me with a more off-beat abstract (as long as it was well-written). I decided to go all-in this year and submit nothing but murder mystery abstracts. Attempting to up my chances, I did some A/B testing by not explicitly titling them all mysteries (compare the SSRS abstract with this one: Living and Dying by Dynamic SQL). I was incredibly fortunate to get two of them selected for the 2015 Summit.

(Honestly, I’m still shocked they trusted me twice.)

Multimedia: I got a lot of positive comments on the A/V aspect of it. Both sessions begin with a faux Skype call from the CEO (the one and only Buck Woody!) explaining the situation. The SSRS mystery ends with a dramatic re-enactment video featuring the perpetrator. There’s background music while attendees discuss the case. I think that went well and hopefully made the session (and its content) more memorable.

Casting: For a mystery like this to go smoothly, I can’t do all the talking or recap suspect interviews. I have to do them live. I got experienced speakers to fill the cast: Mark Vaillancourt, Jes Borland, Mickey Stuewe, Jason Strate, Gina Meronek, Bill Fellows, Hope Foley, Jason Horner, and Allen White. There’s no way I could have pulled it off without their help. (Thank you, cast!)

risks i wish I had mitigated

Rehearsal: Even though I chose experienced speakers to be the suspects, the sessions felt unpolished to attendees. For SQL Saturdays and user group meetings (where I have audience volunteers read the parts), unpolished is okay. At a major conference, I needed to do more to make sure we didn’t stumble through lines. It’s on me to make sure that, as busy as other speakers are with their own sessions, we get together — if only once briefly — to run through our lines together.

Having said that, spontaneity created the most memorable moments — Mark Vaillancourt’s stream of puns, Jes Borland’s unicorn-flipping exit, and a joke that had Mark crying just a few minutes into the session.

Not planning the gaps well enough: There are breaks in between each chapter of the mystery where attendees turn to each other and discuss the clues and interviews they just saw. This can result in dead time if the groups either veer off-topic or just don’t talk much. I need to do a better job of keeping things on track, perhaps by shortening those discussion intervals.

Pushing the Networking Aspect: The abstract defines the murder mystery as part technical presentation, part networking event. I had roughly 80 and 50 attendees for the two sessions. This was great because people who showed up were willing to talk to others. However, I could have toned down the networking angle and gotten more attendees without their expectations.

risks i wish i had taken

Slide Decks: Before presenting at the PASS Summit, I had given the SSRS session several times at user group meetings and SQL Saturdays. Each time, I’d done them without any supporting slides. No bullet points, no summary slides. The only reasons I needed a projector at all were for the demo and re-enactment video at the end.

At the Summit, I panicked a little and decided not to go with an empty deck. I saw this as a make-or-break year for my mystery sessions and I wasn’t willing to risk screwing it up by forgetting material. I also didn’t want to risk getting skewered by attendees for not having bullet points to follow. I’m not afraid of that anymore (and I shouldn’t have been in the first place, honestly).

Marketing: I went out of my way to say as little about myself and my real-life company as I could. There was already some chatter about the free magnetic poetry we were giving away and I didn’t want to make any more waves. I removed the About Me slide from my decks and didn’t mention my BlitzRS script, even though it would’ve been a natural fit (and of some benefit) to those in my SSRS session. I did have SQL Sleuth badge ribbons that I offered to people for having come to the session, but those don’t advertise anything except the session itself. In hindsight, I could’ve left the About Me slides in without any fuss.

we are ready for risk-takers and storytellers

Whether it’s a user group presentation or a major worldwide conference, our SQL Server community has settled into a comfortable spot regarding session format. The expectation is we sit in a crowd and give a speaker our attention for 60-75 minutes. We take notes, maybe mention something about the session on twitter. That’s perfectly all right.

But what would happen if we took more risks with that model, or broke from it entirely? I found at least one way it can be done. There’s another group who’s been doing something similar (for much longer than I have), presenting a collection of short stories — with demos even! — and the audience absolutely loves it.

We need more storytellers. Audiences love storytellers.

Be a storyteller.

Weaving technical details into a story makes your content memorable for months after it’s delivered. If you have the technical topic in mind but need help with the storytelling or how to convey the material more memorably, read these books:

• The Story-Teller’s Start-Up Book by Margaret Read MacDonald
• Brain Rules by John Medina

I’m only beginning to transition from presenter to storyteller. I’m still looking for ways to make the content I share stick in your mind long after the session is over. I’ve found these books to be invaluable and will be working more of their concepts into my 2016 talks.

risks are risky — what if I bomb?

You’ll always be taking risks, but preparation and practice will mitigate the largest ones. You can prepare alone, but if you’re going to try something our community has never seen before, you need to practice with a real-live audience. Find a user group to present to; that’s about as low-stakes as you can go while still having your target audience. If sixty minutes of daring is too much, try thirty. Try ten. Just give it a shot. From there, you’ll get feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Even if you bomb, it won’t hurt much, and you will be closer to realizing your vision.

Stories want to be told

There wasn’t a single day out of the 1,610 days between conception and realization that I didn’t think about this mystery session. I couldn’t get it off my mind. Instead of me having the idea, it’s like the idea chose me — I was just along for the ride.

Is there an idea, a story that has you captivated? Something nagging that won’t let you rest? Stop trying to rest.

Write it!

Accept that you will have to take risks. Know that the risks are worth it. Tell us a story the way only you can. We’re ready for you to take risks.