The Lotusphere Show and Tell Track

I will not be presenting at Lotusphere this year, I did submit a couple of abstracts, but none that made the cut this year.  I am a little disappointed not to be speaking for the first time in a few years, on the other hand, I now have time in December to work on some other things, and I will probably be able to relax a little more at Lotusphere this year, than I was able to the last couple of years.

One decision I made this year was not to submit to the Show and Tell Track (SNT), which is now going in it’s 3rd year as a Lotusphere track.  I presented with Chris Whisonant in 2009 where we presented a record breaking 400 slides, which became the definitive guide on installing and configuring Lotus Connections 2.0.1, and last year I presented with Adrian Spender, a presentation that helped many customize their Lotus Connections 2.5 Instances.

While every Lotusphere session is a lot of work to prepare, practice, and present, the Show and Tell track is different.  Take a look at the track description:

Show ‘n Tell
Audience: Developers and administrators of all levels

The Show ‘n Tell track brings you the best in live technical education. SNT presentations go into comprehensive detail on a specific technology with step by step slides, picture screenshots and live demonstrations that show how it can be used and applied for your environment. All sessions adopt a teaching approach and the documentation is critical to this. Facilitators are both presenter and trainer, and will create a session that will stand alone as an instruction guide for attendees to take back to their own IT environments.

Show and Tell is a different kind of track, the preparation is different, the presentation is different.  When you sign on for Show and Tell you are committing to building a presentation that can become a definitive guide on a subject area, something that people can take home and use to build systems back in their environments.  I would venture to say that one or two SNT sessions in the right areas, could in and of themselves justify your trip to Lotusphere.

So if you are attending Lotusphere 2011, make sure you plan on attending some of the sessions in the SNT track, you won’t regret it. Don’t forget to thank the presenters, while they only have one hour forty five minutes to deliver the session, they have probably spent more then 100 hours preparing slides, and demos.  Paul is not kidding when he said

As for me, I look forward to seeing a SNT session as an attendee this year, though from the ones I have seen that are accepted, picking which ones to put on my schedule are going to be tough, they all look good.  See you in Orlando!