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My first week using RescueTime

April 30, 2012 7 Comments
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I spent a lot of time at my desk. I mean, a LOT of time. I’m really trying to cut down on the numbers of hours I spend at the desk and I’m going for the ‘Work smarter, not harder’ approach. So one of the things I thought I should do was track how much time I’m spending doing different activities. So in order not to spend more time trying out a bunch of different tools, I asked Twitter for a recommendation. I quickly got back a handful of responses suggesting I check out RescueTime. I signed up for the free account, installed the Mac app and away I went…

The first day I installed it, I let it run for about an hour and then went to the dashboard just to make sure it was working. Sure enough, I could see it was recording how much time I was spending in my email client, in a browser, on IM, etc. So, I let ‘er roll.

The following day I checked back and was already really liking the information it was collecting. I did a little research and found that the paid version offered an even better set of reporting, including some custom reports that I’ll talk about later. It was enough to get me to purchase a subscription. I pre-paid for a year, set up some custom reports and went back to work.

The next day I got my first “weekly” report. Since it only had about 1.5 days recorded, I decided to not even bother with it and would wait for another week before really digging in. So here we are a week later. Let’s have a look, shall we?

What I learned

  1. RescueTime will block you from accessing sites that are marked as Very Distracting. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and I’m sure plenty others. But, it didn’t block me from using TweetDeck. It did, however, stop me from clicking on any links that tried to go through the t.co redirect.
  2. I cheated, and it screwed up my stats. Rescue time has a nifty little feature where you can tell it to pause for 15 minutes, 60 minutes or until tomorrow. When it is on pause, you can go to all those great time wasting sites. My problem is, I’d click pause to go check Facebook and then forget to start the clock again once I got back to work. So because of that, my stats for this week are pretty low. For the next week, I’m going to try and not use the pause button for anything other than 15 minute Social Media breaks. I will also try and limit them to a couple per day.
  3. I spend a LOT of time dealing with email. This one wasn’t actually all that shocking to me. Although, I was a little sad to see that my top 2 activities were email and IM. when do I get any work done??? I’m working on some solutions for that issue as well. IM is a vital tool for me since I manage remote developers and that is one of our main communication methods, but I need to lower the amount of time I spend on it.
  4. Custom Reports are awesome! With custom reports you can set up to track time you spend on individual clients by adding a list of keywords that the software will look for. So, if you are writing code and saving it to a directory named ‘client-abc’, you can easily track that time. I need to refine my custom reports a bit, but, I believe over time it will become a way to better track how long each client project takes. This will help with estimating the cost of future projects.

Moving forward I’m going to go ahead and let RescueTime run 24/7 to get a better understanding of how much time I’m spending on the computer and when that time is productive and when it’s not. My goal is to raise the productivity number while lowering the total hours. Although, I have a feeling this next week is going to see a big jump in hours as I try to leave the pause button alone.

Overall I’d have to say I’m really happy with RescueTime. Sure, some of what it’s showing me I already new (Damn you, email), but there have definitely been some eye-openers as well. Now, to use this knowledge to make changes for the better.

Filed Under: Personal, Reviews, Technology, Tools

Shopping at Ikea from Vegas

April 18, 2012 7 Comments
My old desk

Up until two weeks ago, I had never entered an Ikea store for my own shopping purposes. I have been inside an Ikea a couple previous times, but those were always because somebody knew I was traveling to California and asked if I would pick something up for them. I had never even seen the showroom. Just the customer service counter. But that has all changed.

My old desk

For a while now, I have been pretty unhappy with my office desk. It is a corner desk that doesn’t really have enough room to set thing up other than directly pointing in to the corner. Which is pretty darn uncomfortable in a few areas. It would be hard to explain, but trust my, it wasn’t a great desk for sitting for long stretches of time.

We happened to be in So Cal for a few days, and while we were there I made my first REAL trip to Ikea. I had something specific in mind. I was looking for a corner desk that had a rounded transition in the corner, and it was a must that the edges of the desktop were rounded and didn’t have a piece of cheap board stuck to it that would eventually peel off.

Easier said than done.

They didn’t have what I was looking for, so we started looking at some other options. Even though none of the desks they had on display was thrilling me, I was pretty stoked about a nice table top they had on display. It was a thick slab of wood with really nice rounded edges. I loved it immediately. Two problems, though; it doesn’t have legs, and, it was out of stock. Damn.

After getting back to Vegas empty handed, I checked out the Ikea site and found the desktop I had been looking at. On the page they had suggestions for legs, and as alternatives, these spiffy looking shelves. That was exactly what I was looking for. At that point I knew exactly what I wanted. I addeded the items to my cart and calculated the shipping to Vegas. The shipping was actually more than the cost of the entire desk. Ouch! The next thought was to drive back out to Cali. Round trip would be over 500 miles. Between gas prices and the idea of spending a full day on the road, this wasn’t an option either. I needed a better solution. To Twitter I went.

A friend suggested I contact ModernLV.com. They provide Ikea delivery service to Las Vegas. I hit up their site, followed their quick instructions for placing an order (sending an email), and waited for a response. The following morning I got back the details. They charge a percentage of the order price for the service, which, when I considered my other options felt like an absolute steal! I confirmed my order and then began the long wait for the weekend to come and go.

First thing the following Monday, I woke up to an email that my order was here. I scheduled a time to go pick it up, and a few short hours later I had my new desk built and was back to work.

The New Desk

My new desk has a lot less real estate than my old one. I am trying to cut down on the clutter to help keep my mind clear. It has only been 2 days with the new desk,but I feel like the new desk helped me reshape some habits. We shall see what things look like after a few weeks/months, but I am feeling pretty confident that I can stick with it.

I can’t say enough great things about ModernLV. Great service, great communication, friendly. I will definitely use them again.

But for now, back to work at the new desk. Woo hoo!

Filed Under: Personal, Reviews

KISS mini-golf

April 17, 2012 1 Comment
IMG_2403

Growing up, I was such a HUGE KISS fan. I saw them in concert in 1980, had all their albums, dressed as Paul Stanley for halloween, had the lunchbox, watched the TV specials… All of it! I loved that band. I can’t say that there’s ever been a time in my life where I wasn’t at least a casual fan.

That being said, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the amount of merchandise the band has put out over the past decade or so is absolutely gross. Some of the items are cool, don’t get me wrong. And, I love when they license a product that is at least entertaining in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. But come on, the volume of products they’ve licensed is absurd. Not to take anything away from them. They are one of the best marketing machines we may ever see. But still, it does make me a little sad inside.

So of course, since KISS opened an indoor mini-golf course right here in Las Vegas (Across from the Hard Rock), you know I was gonna have to at least check it out.

We had gone to Vegas StrEATs on Saturday, and as we were finishing up some food, it began to rain. But, rather than just head home, I threw out the idea of checking out Kiss Mini-Golf. We headed that direction and called ahead to find out the price and to confirm it was an indoor venue. I certainly didn’t want to be mini-golfing in the rain. Even though I though $11.95/person was a bit spendy for mini-golf, the $2 off per person for locals made the price at least tolerable. As we were paying, I saw a sign that suggested getting the iPhone app for keeping score. Naturally, I had to geek it up and grab the app. I was a bit put off that it was a $0.99 download. Come on. You already have me dropping $40 to play a round of mini-golf. But, whatever… on we went.

The place is pumping KISS music and I’m pretty sure the only lights in the place are black lights. Tons of black light paint is glowing all around the place. The 18 hole course isn’t all that challenging, but the atmosphere and the staff really made up for it. The place was pretty busy, so there were plenty of times where we were standing still waiting for the group ahead of us to finish up. They have staff members who will come around and ask KISS trivia questions and give you tickets for correct answers.

The walls are painted with some some famous Vegas-related names, usually painted up in KISS make-up. Oscar Goodman, Elvis, Liberace and a bunch others. Oddly, there wasn’t as much KISS memorabilia as I was expecting. They do have a small-ish store where you can purchase a bevy of KISS related products. Oh, and for those with a shit-ton of money, you can purchase a bass played by Gene Simmons and get a meet and great at a concert of your choice (tix not included).

Reading this back, it sounds like I’m doing more complaining than anything, but we actually had a really good time. I think I was a little put off by some aspects of it. Maybe a more spread out golf course would have helped. It does sorta feel like you’re golfing with groups on 3 different holes at the same time. I’d say it’s worth at least checking out once, but I can’t see myself rushing back for another round any time soon.

Here’s some photos from our adventure.

Filed Under: Personal

Some thoughts on finder’s fees

April 9, 2012 5 Comments

Last year somebody reached out to me and mentioned that they had a client they couldn’t take on so they wanted to pass them my way. I got some basic details about the project and it seemed like we’d be a good fit for what the client needed, so I said send ‘em over. The person said, “OK and then when you land the client, you can send me a 10% finder’s fee.” Without thinking much about it, I agreed. After getting off the phone and giving it some thought, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. On one hand, I may not have ever found that client, so getting 90% of something is better than 100% of nothing. But, on the other hand, the other developer was overloaded and wouldn’t have taken the project anyway and I felt like they were just trying to capitalize as they sent the client away. Either way, I wasn’t really happy. And, as luck would have it, it didn’t work out and we didn’t land the client so I didn’t have to deal with it anyway.

I go to a fair amount of WordCamps around the country with a bunch of other WordPress developers. When hanging out and talking with non-developers, one question that comes up from time to time is “Who is your competition?” My answer is always the same, “Everybody here. And nobody.”

I’m currently fielding more project enquiries than I could handle. Hell, my current project list is already insane and I’m telling anybody who calls that I’m booked through the middle of next month. And when they say that they can’t wait that long to get started, the next thing I do is send them an email with a list of other WordPress developers I know who may be able to squeeze them in. No request for a finder’s fee. Just trying to connect somebody who needs work done with somebody who may have time to do some work.

This past week I had another request from somebody asking for a finder’s fee. I politely told them that I don’t offer a finder’s fee and if they wanted to send the project to somebody else instead, that was fine with me. Once again, when I got off the phone, I stopped to think about the conversation. I’m wondering if I’m going about this all wrong? Am I missing out on a grip of cash by not requesting a finder’s fee from people I send leads to?

Oh, right, I almost forgot… I don’t care.

Here’s my thinking; if you are only interested in sending me the lead because you’re looking for a slice off the top as the client leaves your hands, do me a favor and just don’t send them my way. If you spent time with the client ahead of time and helped them sort out their RFP, you definitely should be paid for that. There’s even a word for what you did. They call it consulting. Consultants get paid. By the client. I am not your client.

So, yeah. After having some time to think about it, I’ll just go on record and say, “No, I will not send you a finder’s fee”. I’ll have to list this post right next to my “No, I will not sign your NDA post”

I’m curious what you think. What’s your take on finder’s fees? Do you ask for them? Do you pay them? Leave a comment and give me your angle on it.

 

 

Filed Under: Work Tagged With: ,

2012 NHL Hockey Playoff Predictions

April 8, 2012 Leave a Comment

Last year I posted my 2011 NHL Hockey Playoff Predictions, and I ended up going 7-1 in the first round. I came up with Vancouver playing Boston in the finals, but my finals prediction ended up failing. Still, a pretty good showing.

With the playoffs getting set to start on Wednesday, it’s time to give my predictions for this year’s playoffs. Everything after the first round is a bit of a crapshoot because of the way the NHL reseeds the teams before the next round. But, whatever… here we go:

Round 1 – Western Conference

Los Angeles Kings (8) vs Vancouver Canucks (1)

Last year I voted with my head when I picked my beloved Kings to lose to the Sharks. Well, this year, I’m going with my heart. I think Jonathan Quick is going to steal this series for the Kings.

Winner: Kings in 6 games

San Jose Sharks (7) vs St Louis Blues (2)

If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that the Blues would have been within 1 game of winning the Presidents trophy as the best overall team in the league, I would have ruptured something laughing at you. But, here we are. All I can say is, good luck Sharks. Wait, I hate the Sharks. It’s going to be fun watching them live up to their annual playoff disappointment!

Winner: Blues in 5 games

Chicago Blackhawks (6) vs Phoenix Coyotes (3)

The Coyotes goalie has been INSANE recently and I have a feeling the Blackhawks are going to have a tough time getting pucks behind him. Never bet against a hot goalie.

Winner: Coyotes in 6 games

Detroit Red Wings (5) vs Nashville Predators (4)

I think these are the two teams that nobody in the west wants to play right now. It’s nice that only one of them will make it through to the second round. Nashville is a gritty team and their power play is one of the best. Detroit is just getting back a bunch of healthy players. This is the series to watch in the west in the first round. It’s going to be a great one.

Winner: Predators in 7 games

Round 1: Eastern Conference

Ottawa Senators (8) vs New York Rangers (1)

Last year I picked the Rangers in the #1 slot to get upset by Washington. It was my one error in last year’s opening round. I made the biggest mistake. I bet against the hot goalie. Dumb. This year is different though. Lundquist isn’t standing on his head like last season. I think this is going to be a really tough, high-scoring series. And, as much as I’d like to say we’re gonna see another 8 knock off a 1, I just can’t.

Winner: Rangers in 6 games

Washington Capitols (7) vs Boston Bruins (2)

Tim Thomas has kinda come back down to earth after his amazing season/playoffs last year and Washington finished the regular season strong after playing pretty mediocre most of the year. But sadly for the Caps, they’re goalie situation is a mess.

Winner: Bruins in 4 games

New Jersey Devils (6) vs Florida Panthers (3)

Congrats to the Panthers for finally making it to the playoffs. Enjoy the next few games. They’re the only ones you’ll be playing in the playoffs this year.

Winner: Devils in 4 games

Philadelphia Flyers (5) vs Pittsburg Penguins (4)

Holy crap, it’s like Christmas in April. If you don’t already have a DVR, go get one. Now. These teams hate each other. This series should be the most entertaining of the first round. Hell, maybe of the entire playoffs. I know there’s not usually many fights in the playoffs, but I’m gonna say this series breaks that rule. Oh, and for my prediction, I’m going with goalies on this one.

Winner: Penguins in 7 games (man, I hope it goes 7 games)

Round 2: Western Conference

Kings vs Blues

The Kings played the Blues really tough this year. But, I still think the task may be a bit too big this time around.

Winner: Blues in 6 games

Predators vs Coyotes

I think the Preds are gonna wear down the Coyotes and score a bunch on the power play.

Winner: Predators in 6 games

Round 2: Eastern Conference

Devils vs Rangers

This should be a pretty fun series to watch. In the end, the Rangers are gonna be too much for the Devils

Winner: Rangers in 5 games

Penguins vs Bruins

Let me just say, I think this series is going to decide who wins the cup this year. I’m going to go with the Penguins to light up Tim Thomas for a bunch of goals. If I’m wrong and the Bruins win this one, you can switch my picks to Bruins to repeat.

Winner: Penguins in 6 games

Western Conference: Round 3

Predators vs Blues

This should be a pretty good series. I think it’s going to be a really close one. I’m gonna go for the upset here.

Winner: Predators in 7 games

Eastern Conference: Round 3

Penguins vs Rangers

The media circus around this series should be an absolute blast! How about this for a great finish: game 7, overtime, in New York… Crosby scores and immediately points at Tortorella on the bench who’s head explodes.

Winner: Penguins in 7 games

Stanley Cup Finals

Predators vs Penguins

You may not think so, but I think this would be a really entertaining final. In the end, I’ll have to go with playoff experience to come through.

The Champs will be: Penguins in 6 games

So there ya go. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Oh, and if you have your own predictions, leave ‘em here, too.

 

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , ,

Jumping on the Mac bandwagon

March 21, 2012 13 Comments
Apple

Well, I guess my decent in to total Apple Fanboy status is complete. A little over a week ago  I purchased a Macbook Air. The funny thing is, I didn’t actually feel like a fanboy. I have never once stood in line or even pre-ordered an Apple product. I think either one, if not both of those activities would be required to really be considered a true fanboy. I will admit that I’m a huge fan of the Apple products. The Macbook Air is no exception.

Let me start by saying, this isn’t something I jumped in to rashly. I’ve considered the move for some time. Cash flow was certainly one of the reasons I didn’t make the move sooner. But more than that, it’s hard to break habits that you’ve had for 20+ years. A few years back I bought a Macbook thinking that I would make the switch to Mac at that time. That didn’t happen. I used the previous Mac sparingly. It was great for traveling because it was nice and light and I really enjoyed using Keynote (along with Keynote Remote for the iPhone) for doing presentations. But, my day-to-day work just didn’t fit the Mac, so I soon found that I was going months without booting it up. It sat collecting dust until a couple of months back when I sold it (using Rumgr) to put the money towards buying a new Mac.

Several people have asked me why I’m making the switch. As I started to consider my response, I realized the answer isn’t quick and easy. There’s quite a few reasons, actually. So, in no real order, here’s the main reasons why I’m making the switch:

Trackpad / Gestures
I have several friends who have Macs and watching the ease in which they move from desktop to desktop was awesome. Swipe, browser. Swipe again, editor. Swipe a third time, Twitter and IM client. Two finger swipe does this function. Three finger swipe does another. For as cool as it looked, testing it out at the Apple store made all the difference. It just FEELS right. Oh, and having one less gadget to lug around when traveling sounded appealing as well.

Support
About 20 years ago I used to build my own computers. If not building from scratch, I would install RAM or new hard drives, troubleshoot hardware… all of it. The thought of doing that today makes my cringe. For the past couple years, my PC laptop has had a problem with a driver that has made it almost impossible for me to use Skype on the machine. I can use it, but I’ll have to reboot within 15 minutes of completing the Skype call. I really like the idea of the Genius Bar. Having a place that I can make an appointment and go to for support sounds really great to me. Will I ever use it? Dunno. But, I have it in my back pocket if something comes up.

The App Store
Say what you will about Apple having too much control over the app store, but ya know what, when I download an app to my phone, the likelihood that it’s going to work is pretty darn high. I’m willing to accept a smaller pool of apps that will work over having a larger number of apps and playing the needle in the haystack game to find one that works. Yes, that’s probably a bit over dramatic, but you get the point.

Size / Weight
Once I decided to buy a Mac, I had to decide between a MBP or an MBA. I probably changed my mind a dozen times, but in the back of my mind I was pretty sure I wanted an Air. The 13″ model has a sufficient screen for getting things done when not at my desk with the large external monitor. Plus, the thing weighs, and I’m not exaggerating, about 1/4 of what my previous laptop weighs. Given the amount of travel I do, carrying the Air around as compared to the 17″ wide-screen behemoth I have been lugging around is going to seem like not carrying one at all. Not to mention, with my previous laptop I wasn’t able to use it on the last 6 or 7 flights in a row because the person in front of my would lower the seat and my laptop was simply too big to be of any use.

While I’m sure there were other factors in making the decision, these were definitely the biggies.

One Week Later
It’s been just over a week since I got the Mac. Immediately after getting it I began moving EVERYTHING to it (thank you, Dropbox). I hit up friends and Twitter to get some input on which apps to check out. I got some great suggestions, and outside of QuickBooks (I’m not planning on purchasing it for the Mac), I can do  everything I was doing on the PC on the Mac. I’ve used the PC to test a couple sites for compatibility, but other than that it’s been Mac all the way. So unlike my previous attempt to switch, I think this one may actually stick.

Move over Fanboys and make room for your newest member.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With:

What do you use for small business accounting?

February 15, 2012 16 Comments

For the past 2 years I’ve been using Quickbooks to handle the book keeping for my business. But, I freakin’ love FreshBooks and I want to use it for invoicing. The problem that I have is that I can’t import FreshBooks invoices/payments in to Quickbooks so it means I have to do double entry in order to keep my Quickbooks accounts up to date. So I’m on the hunt for a replacement for Quickbooks.

My needs are pretty minimal. I need to be able to keep a journal for a paypal account and a checking account. I need to be able to enter bills for things like rent, hosting, contractors, etc… I then need to be able to track when I pay those invoices. And, as stated above, I want to be able to import (an auto-import would be ideal) invoices from Freshbooks. Even if I have to manually mark those invoices as paid, that’s fine.

I tried using Wave Accounting for a little bit, but didn’t care for it much. I’ve been looking around trying to find another solution, but I’m at a loss.

My wife suggested I ask my network of friends as they are a smart bunch and probably have this solved. So I’m asking, what accounting system do you use? Please leave a comment and let me know! I’d really appreciate it!

Filed Under: Work Tagged With: ,

WordPress Tip: Which template is being used?

February 15, 2012 11 Comments
Which Template Code

Whenever I’m working on a new WordPress theme, especially one that uses different templates for Custom Post Types, archives, tags or any other string of possible data types, there always comes a time when I’m just not certain exactly which template WordPress is displaying.

If you aren’t sure how the WordPress theme hierarchy works, this graphic shows the exact flow on how WordPress chooses which template file to use for a given page. But, when you are making changes to CPT slugs, page names, taxonomies and the like, in order to know exactly which file is actually being used on the page you’re viewing, you’re going to need a little more assistance. That’s where this piece of code comes in to play.

Open up your theme’s functions.php file and add the following:

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add_action('wp_head', 'show_template'); 
 
function show_template() { 	
global $template;
print_r($template);
}

Save the file and now when you view your site in a browser, you’ll see something like this:

Just below the admin bar and right above the beginning of your site you’ll see the directory path and file name being used on the page you’re viewing. No more guessing!

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway… Unless you want this showing up on your live site, please comment out this code before pushing your theme live.

Filed Under: Themes, WordPress

Ignite Vegas 2.0, finally

January 16, 2012 1 Comment
Ignite Vegas

Back in August I helped organize the first Ignite event here in Las Vegas. I’ve been a fan of the Ignite format (5 minute presentations, 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds) and have watched dozens of videos from other Ignite events online. I was thrilled that we would finally be having an Ignite right here where I could go and be part of the excitement as it was happening. It did not disappoint.

After that first event, I was certain I wanted to come up with a topic and submit a session for the next event. I had kicked around a few ideas related to WordPress. But really, all of my public speaking over the past 2.5 years has been about WordPress and I wanted to talk about something else. I threw some ideas around with my wife, but there had been one in the back of my mind for a while that for some reason I was reluctant to mention. So finally I threw it out there.

I said, “I think I want to do a session titled ‘Everything I know about business, I learned from Fight Club.’”

Fight Club had been on my mind quite a bit recently. It is my favorite movie of all time and I had just recently built a site called durdenipsum.com (and a WordPress plugin) where I use quotes from the movie to generate placeholder text to be used for site design. So the movie was already on my mind. Once the title was out in the open, no other idea had much appeal. I submitted the session and as luck would have it, I was selected as one of the presenters for Ignite Vegas 2.0. (it’s perfectly fine to point out that I’m one of the organizers and I may have played favoritism on letting myself in.)

The event was last week and it was an absolute blast! The week leading up to the event, well, that’s a different story all together. That week I made a very enlightening discovery; it is exponentially more difficult to prepare for a 5 minute presentation than a 45 minute presentation.

Long Form Presentations
Almost all of my public speaking to this point has been in the form of 30-45 minute presentations. With that much time to be on stage, there’s plenty of time to take questions from the crowd which can alter the course of a presentation, or there’s time to back up and revisit a slide to dive further in to a specific topic. With Ignite, you’ve got none of that to fall back on. When I’m making slides, I will go over them for several days. Each slide is typically used to convey either a specific point, or as a visual cue to me for what I want to say next. So it’s important that each slide is serving it’s purpose and each topic in the set is in the right order to keep the session on track. As a result, once my slide deck is done, there is very little for me to practice. I already know the key points I want to make, and I want the presentation to be more of a conversation with the crowd instead of me droning on for 45 minutes.

None of that prepared me for speaking at Ignite.

Prepping for Ignite
Of course, the first thing I did was watch the movie. I sat with a note pad and jotted down some key elements. I already had a handful of ideas in mind for things I wanted to mention related to business. Now I just needed to tie them, in some cases the ties are pretty loose, back to the movie. When the movie was over I had 3 pages of notes.

I took the notes and started pairing them up to quotes from the movie. The plan was to use 1 quote and 1 image per slide to summarize each point I was going to make. Easier said than done. I spent the next 2 days going over the list, matching up quotes and writing out everything I wanted to say for each slide. If this were a normal presentation, I would be done. No dice. I was just getting started.

Next I watched the movie again. This time I was looking for visuals to go along with quotes and topics I had written out. In most cases I simply waited until each quote was used and found a semi-relevant image from the scene to use for the slide. This was great when the scene and quote worked together. When it didn’t, it meant watching the movie from end-to-end to find a single frame. The result; to get 20 screen shots, I watched the movie for 6+ hours.

Still not done.

I made my slides and sent them in with less than 90 minutes to spare before the deadline. I now had no way of changing my slides and 4 days to prepare for my presentation. I added all my slides to PowerPoint and set it up to auto-advance just like the real thing. I then proceeded to start practicing. After running through the slides a couple times, the first thought I had was, “Holy shit, this is tough!”

I probably ended up doing 50 or so test runs. No two had the same content. I would change wording. I’d forget a point I wanted to make. I’d add extra wording that would make me run long on a given slide. I also found it very difficult to give the presentation in front of just one or two people. I’ve spoken in front of 500 people before and wasn’t half as nervous as I was in my loft presenting to my wife and kid.

The day of the event, THANKFULLY, was a work day. I kept pretty busy until it was time to start getting ready. I decided to drink a beer and do one more walk through. It was the worst one yet. So I did it again. The second one was half decent. Fuck it. I was as ready as I was going to be.

Show Time
The place filled up nicely by the time things started. We were at a bar so it made it really convenient to grab a little extra liquid courage before it was my turn to go on stage. When they called the speaker right before me, I made my way to the side of the stage. I went over in my head the couple of slides that kept tripping me up. Before I knew it she was announcing my name. My first slide showed up on screen and the next 5 minutes flew by in the blink of an eye. When I got off stage I couldn’t remember a thing I had said. I couldn’t remember screwing anything up too terribly, so that was good. But, I also couldn’t remember if I made the points I was trying to make.

I am both looking forward and terrified to see the video of my presentation once they get posted.

Regardless, I had an great time and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. I couldn’t ask for much more than that.

Filed Under: #VegasTech Tagged With: ,