[Wellington-pm] Next meeting, etc

[Jacinta Richardson]

Grant McLean wrote:

> 1) Next meeting: February 10th
> 
>    I'm thrilled to confirm that Jacinta Richardson and Paul Fenwick will
>    be visiting Wellington in February and are going to come and talk to
>    us about something (as yet unspecified).

We're thrilled to be coming.  But this is no longer unspecified. 
Details below!

6:00pm Tuesday 10 February 2008
Level 3, Catalyst House
150 Willis Street
Wellington
(http://wellington.pm.org/  includes map link)

An Illustrated History of Failure
Paul Fenwick

The average individual is given little scope for failure, at least not 
the type that really matters. The opportunity for catastrophic failure, 
that influences nations or continents, has been traditionally reserved 
for royalty, parliament, and others in a position of great leadership.

However in recent times we have developed a profession who have the 
opportunity to fail like never before. A profession that can make 
mistakes that are so monumental, so wide-reaching, and so costly they 
can shake civilization to its very core. This elite group, rarely seen 
by every day society, are the foundation upon which modern society 
depends. The few, the proud, the Software Developers.

Join us for a voyage of discovery, as we travel back through history to 
some of the most monumental failures the world has ever seen.


On Speaking
Jacinta Richardson

You've been to *those* talks.  The kind where the title first drew your
attention, the abstract made you go wow, and you were so excited you 
took afront seat.  Then the speaker went to their first slide and it was 
so full of text (15 bullet points!) and you just knew they were going to 
spend the next ten minutes talking about what you've just read in two. 
Worse, being up the front, you can't easily leave and it'd be rude to 
pull out your laptop...

Don't be one of those speakers.  No matter how technically brillant your 
talk, it's worth nothing at all if you can't keep your audience 
interested.  This (short) talk will cover a whole bunch of tricks you 
can use to get your audience's attention and keep it.  Better yet, if 
you use these ideas there's a good chance people will remember *what* 
you spoke about and will attend your future talks as well.