[H-GEN] re the earlier discussion on assisting beginners/migrants

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2009-02-09 at 14:07 +1000, Clinton Roy wrote:
> So, thing is, I'm never happy doing something unofficially, and there
> is already an official talks liaison person selected. Perhaps we
> should give that person a bit of a go first.

Yes, well that is fair enough.  But I wasn't trying to bypass the
process.  My message was aimed at three parties:

1.  The Humbug exec, who must make the decision about whether we
    will have a Talks Maintainer and if so who it will be.  This 
    is attempt to prod them into action.

2.  Yourself, obviously, as you have to accept the position.

3.  The club at large, to see if they will support it.

And you are right, the existing Talks Maintainer isn't on that
list.  That was because I didn't realise we had an active one.  
This is possibly because I have not heard from them, or if we
do they are inactive.  This is evidenced by everybody who has 
given a talk recently completely by-passing them and just 
announcing it to the list.

Not that is a necessarily a bad thing, mind you.  I don't see
the Talks Maintainer job as granting permission to give a talk.
The only real role he/she might perform in that area is 
maintaining a schedule on the web so there aren't clashes.  
Their _real_ job is much harder: to actively encourage talks.

Unlike being some "talk permission god", this requires real 
work.  Worse, it means you must dream up ways of cajoling 
people into giving talks.  Some things you might try are:

1.  Having a "speaker" fest, where potential talks are thrashed
    around, people volunteer to give a talk, and other attendees
    help them prepare it: ie find material and create slides.
    In other words make preparing talks a group / club project.

2.  Giving a talk on how to prepare a talk.  Ideally given by
    someone who has recently read a book on the subject and
    then put it into action.  I believe you are positioned in
    this respect.

3.  Approaching people directly.  Peter Robinson list of talk 
    topics was an excellent starting point, mostly because they
    are at the newbie level and thus require no great expertise.
    Just about any Humbug could give at least one of those talks,
    if given a little bit of help to get started.

I haven't given a lot of talks myself, but I would be happy to
sit with someone who has given one or two, perhaps next weekend, 
or possibly one night this week and prepare a "How to give a 
talk" talk.  I imagine it might describe a recipe for preparing
tutorials like the ones above.  Something like:
  Step 1 - finding material.
  Step 2 - preparing a story like / tutorial sequence,
  Step 3 - preparing the slides
Any volunteers?

Unfortunately, I can't attend the next Humbug meeting, as I will
be at a compulsory work conference.