{"id":12447,"date":"2014-12-17T12:52:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T11:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=6945"},"modified":"2014-12-17T12:52:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T11:52:20","slug":"how-not-to-give-an-enterprise-software-keynote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/how-not-to-give-an-enterprise-software-keynote.html","title":{"rendered":"How (Not) To Give An Enterprise Software Keynote"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-6946\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/keynote-did-you-know-more-data-cartoon.jpg?resize=608%2C496&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"keynote-did-you-know-more-data-cartoon\" width=\"608\" height=\"496\" \/><\/div>\n<div>Warning: snark ahead. I attend 40+ enterprise software conferences a year. If you\u2019re preparing a keynote, <i>please<\/i> don\u2019t do the same as everybody else, i.e:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nIntroduction<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Show Dramatic opening video featuring an American Announcer Voice<\/li>\n<li>Start with a few irrelevant words about being in city X, the current date, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Unenthusiastically thank the sponsors for paying for the conference and the audience for attending<\/li>\n<li>Give a few stories about cool disruptive companies that have nothing to do with your organization \u00a0(Whatsapp, Uber, etc.). Bonus points for using terms like\u00a0\u201cparadigm shift\u201d and \u201cgame-changing&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Marvel at how the technology your kids use is different from when you grew up<\/li>\n<li>Mention how many Milennials will be in the workforce in the future<\/li>\n<li>Display lots of big numbers on the screen, ask &#8220;Did you know that there\u2019s more social\/cloud\/analytics\/mobile than ever before?&#8221; (actually, yes, we did).\u00a0Bonus points for including the words \u201czetabytes\u201d and \u201cyottabytes\u201d and\/or using 8pt fonts<\/li>\n<li>Put up some cherry-picked statistics\/quotes from industry analysts (does\u00a0<em>anybody<\/em> really believe or care about &#8220;predicted market size&#8221; figures?)<\/li>\n<li>Optional: include some high-level social trends that have nothing to do with the audience, such as growth of consumers in Asia, water scarcity, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Talk about the consumerization of enterprise IT and the importance of ease of use. Bonus points for using terms like \u201cdemocratizing\u201d and &#8220;for all of us\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Awkwardly link everything you just said to the product that you actually want to talk about<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><strong>Products<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Play buzzword-laden product marketing video with an American Announcer Voice<\/li>\n<li>Call colleague on stage to demonstrate your software (audience wakes up!).<\/li>\n<li>Nervously mention how it might go wrong because server is other side of the world, etc (or use canned demo, but don\u2019t mention that it\u2019s canned)<\/li>\n<li>Give long business situation setup explanation that audience instantly forgets<\/li>\n<li>Click around in the software, pretending to find out something new. Omit to point out that what you\u2019ve found is either obvious or doesn\u2019t really make much sense<\/li>\n<li>Tell some lame jokes<\/li>\n<li>Include lots of colorful charts in the demo (bonus for 3D pie charts) and emphasize\u00a0mobile-first native HTML5 interfaces<\/li>\n<li>Use the terms \u201copen,\u201d &#8220;ease of use,\u201d \u201csimple,\u201d and \u201creal time\u201d at least ten times<\/li>\n<li>Tell an oversimplified story about a customer deployment of the product and the benefits they saw. Don\u2019t mention any challenges, problems, etc. (Bonus for another American Announcer Voice video)<\/li>\n<li>Repeat above points per product you\u2019re trying to sell (bonus for vaporware that doesn&#8217;t exist yet and double bonus for concept demos of software that you have no intention of actually ever building)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>We also have services! and training! and partners!<\/li>\n<li>Did I mention that there was disruption, and we all need to innovate?<\/li>\n<li>Mention\u00a0ease of use\/simple\/real-time etc. again<\/li>\n<li>Talk to us!\/download the product!\/buy the product! etc.<\/li>\n<li>Go 20% over your allotted time because you&#8217;re more important (and nobody dares complain), thank the audience for &#8220;holding out&#8221; for so long.<\/li>\n<li>Upbeat rock\u00a0walk-out music<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Did I miss any of your favorite keynote <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trope_(literature)\" target=\"_blank\">tropes<\/a>? Tell me and I&#8217;ll include the best ones!<\/p>\n<p>[updated with suggestions from <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/esjewitt\" target=\"_blank\">@esjewitt<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/biscorecard\" target=\"_blank\">@biscorecard,<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/graphomate\" target=\"_blank\">@graphomate<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/clemoha\" target=\"_blank\">@clemoha<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/koehntopp\" target=\"_blank\">@koehntopp<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/matthiaswild\" target=\"_blank\">@matthiaswild<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jonerp\" target=\"_blank\">@jonerp<\/a>\u00a0and others\u00a0&#8212; thanks to all!]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attend 40+ enterprise software conferences a year. If you\u2019re preparing a keynote, PLEASE don\u2019t do the same as everybody else&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conferences"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/keynote-did-you-know-more-data-cartoon-608x496-2.jpg?fit=608%2C496&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3X9RF-3eL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}