Author Archives: Jeanne Boyarsky

technical speaking – getting better over time

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I recently needed to find a video of myself speaking. This caused me to notice that I’ve gotten much better (and more comfortable) speaking since 2007.

2007 – Google Test Automation Conference

In 2007, I attended the Google Test Automation Conference. They had 5 minute lightning talks and I signed up. This mean that I “wrote” what I was going to say that day and wasn’t prepared. More importantly, at that point, I’d only spoken once or twice before in front of a large audience and only internally at work. I remember being scared and worried about going over time (if you went over, they threw stuff at you)

That said, I was substantially better in 2007 then I was in 2002! I remember having to give a presentation in 2003 or so at work. I memorized every word I was going to say!

What I noticed rewatching the video

  • I didn’t sound confident in the intro
  • I fiddled with my hands a lot at the beginning
  • Once I got into the tech content, I started looking around and gesturing more
  • I stuck to that podium like glue
  • I didn’t know to hold my fingers up when listing points yet

2009

In 2009, I joined Toastmasters. I realized I wanted to get better at engaging the audience. My focus was improving at “humorous technical content”. Because if you can make someone laugh, you get their attention!

2014

In 2014, I gave a presentation about Java to high school students and they were kind enough to record it. This time I was prepared. And more importantly, I had skills to draw from. In addition to Toastmasters, I had given many more presentations at work.

This time I noticed:

  • I looked at my laptop less
  • I moved around and engaged the audience more
  • I was able to make impromptu jokes
  • I looked more confident

2015

In 2015, I gave a 10 minute talk about Agile. Again, I was prepared. And again, I noticed many of the same skills. I was comfortable and able to make jokes. For this one, I was involving the audience, so I can really see how well I was adapting to what was going on around me.

(not sure what happened to the video)

irs’ IPPIN problems

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Krebs reported that the IRS suspended online lookup of your six digit IPPIN. I agree that was the least secure part of the process and earlier in the month wrote:

Next, I had to answer four questions to confirm my identity. Two had an answer of “n/a” just like the annual credit report system. I don’t think this is overly difficult for the bad guys to get past nor does Krebbs. In fact, the best way to protect yourself against this is to sign up so your identity already has an account and nobody else can sign up for you.

This problem was avoidable though. The IRS should have required people to register for an online account or at least supplying an email when signing up for the mailed PIN in the first place. That way they know who the account is supposed to belong to.

After all, someone would get a message that the account was already created if someone tried to steal my IPPIN. (Don’t bother, I’ve already submitted my taxes.)

The IRS said they will be using a different system next year. Curious to see what they do given you can’t opt out of IPPIN!

speaking at the java sig “hello java” group

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I spoke at the “Hello Java” workgroup meeting of the NY Java SIG this week. The topic was an overview of the Java certification – how to get started, how to study, etc. While the focus was the Java OCA/OCP certifications, much of the material applies to any exam. You can view the deck on slideshare.

There were two challenges:

  1. There were about 30 attendees at varying levels of Java knowledge – from people who were very new to Java to those who already held the certification. I think I was able to hold everyone’s attention.
  2. The projector didn’t work for the first half hour. I actually did about a third of my presentation based on my printout of the slides and writing/drawing on the whiteboard. I was actually finishing a point about content when the intro slide went up and these pictures were taken. Luckily I’m experienced enough as a presenter for this to not throw me! When the projector did work, I reviewed the graphical highlights and continued from there. Toastmasters helped me practice many things going wrong.helloJava-cert-intro helloJava-cert-intro2

In addition to the deck, we wrote a little code. I got teased about my “one handed vi skills” (I was holding a microphone in the other hand.) And we went over some practice questions not on the exam – I used the Random vs Math examples. I got lots of questions which was great. Both during the presentation – every time I asked if there were questions – and 8-10 people who stayed afterwards to ask more questions. I even had someone bring his copy of our OCP book for me to sign.

I enjoyed the session and will be doing a part two in May. Part two is about how to create practice questions and figure out the important points to study for any exam. We’ll be using some Java 9 concepts as the examples so this will be good for people at any experience level of Java. Very few people are solid on Java 9 yet (I’m not either) so it should be a level playing field for showing how to approach!