It’s easy to listen to all the positive praise you get after a presentation. It’s even easier to brush off all the negative criticism as haters or jealous folks. What’s hard is talking for seven hours on the drive home about how the negative criticism may have been correct and then figuring out ways to make future “She Said, He Said” live presentations even better.
What we’re planning
A tighter theme for each presentation: We went into this thinking the random jumping around of topics would be appreciated. Sometimes being different isn’t always being better.
More slides to support our topics and the solutions Shelby and I recommend: I’m not the world’s biggest fan of PowerPoint slides, but I think in this case it’s necessary and will add value to the session. The added benefit is that attendees will have a better takeaway since we will publish all the slide decks to SlideShare.
The topics will all support the aforementioned common theme like, “Making Your WordPress Blog a Better Blog.” That could include every topic we presented at WordCamp Detroit, but just organized differently and presented from a different perspective in some cases.
Other things to refine
In our case, we will also be taking a look at the page for “She Said, He Said.” It looks like it’s time for this project to have a life of its own and that could include a dedicated domain in the not-to-distant future.
We are planning for success by seeking out speaking opportunities four to 12 months ahead of time. We know where we want to go with this concept now, so it’s time to plan a bit further ahead than we have been.
Your turn – how do you refine projects after launch?