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A Linux Presentation Repository?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-decent-starting-point dept.

literate asks: "I just presented the third of three lectures advocating the use of Linux and Open Source software. The first two were at the Desktop Summit Conference and SCALE3X, Southern California Linux Expo where I presented on the subject of the use of Open Source Software in small schools. Last night I presented on the use of Open Source software to secure business communications for the monthly meeting of the Open Source Software for Business Peer Group of Tech Point Indiana's largest technology trade group. Linux & FLOSS advocacy is my way of giving back to the community. There were dozens of great presentations at both conferences, which made me wonder if it might be time for someone to start collecting the best presentations, and make them available for quality presenters so that they can leverage these incredible resources beyond the one or two uses they might otherwise have?" "I'm not competent to start a such a thing, but I'd like to hear from other readers who feel the idea deserves some attention.

There are probably countless opportunities to present on these subjects and hundreds of good presenters who would benefit from 'canned' or nearly complete presentation materials. With an effectively organized and maintained repository, the influence of a great presentation could be spread across a much wider audience.

In the meantime, you are welcome to share my presentations at Kim's Presentations."

3 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Content Repository by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rather than having full or partial presentations, it would be more useful to have a repository of content, i.e. a Wiki, covering topics ranging from studies and statistics to info about OSS utilities, distros and tools.

    The reason this would be far more useful is because presenters tend to have different presentation styles, and presentations tend to be brief. As such, it would be hard to use the same presentation in different scenarios.

  2. Is it really useful? by miyako · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The question that needs to be asked is, what useful purpose would a repository of presentations on F/OSS serve. You seem to be working under the idea that a good presentation would be useful in more venues than it was originally present in, but I'm not quite sure that this is really the case.
    A good presentation is specifically targetted at the audience, and no two audiences are completely alike, and I'm not sure that the audiences would be similar enough for a good presentation given to one audience to be effective when given to another.
    Audiences aside, a presentation should also play on the strengths of the presenter, and presenters probably vary even more widely than audiences.
    One thing that could be useful however is a repository of information that could be used in creating presentations, if such a beast doesn't exist. This probably wouldn't have to be much more than a collection of links to other sites anyway, I'm sure the majority of the information is out there.
    Of course, all that said, I'm all for promoting F/OSS, and it's good that we have new ideas on how to do this, and even if some of them don't pan out, it's always good that people are thinking of new things to help out F/OSS.

    --
    Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
    1. Re:Is it really useful? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You tweak the presentations and use them for ideas.

      I disagree that every presentation has to be different... at least in so far as the presentation materials have to be different.

      The best presentations I've seen or given have been ones which have been given out multiple times. You can fine tune the presentation, reorder parts, sort out the timing, include obvious questions or omit them to pull in audience participation.

      It's not such a bad idea. Using them unmodified is a bit risky, but having a repository of presentations would be great as source material to create your own presentation.

      From one of his presentations, he has a concept and graphic of a corporate adoption doughnut. That's a pretty nice little slide, if I had to give a similar sales pitch to an educational institution, I might think about including something like that. People understand doughnuts.

      I suspect that the fellow who posted the question is competant enough to put this together. He just needs a subdirectory somewhere to shove his files, and an asbestos suit until some kind volunteers convert his PPT and DOC files into OpenOffice documents...