Ready, Steady, Speak at Remix 08

Next week, 18th and 19th September, sees the arrival of Remix 08 in Brighton and as seems to be the general trend at these big events of late, NxtGenUG are getting really involved and this time they'll be running another Ready, Steady, Speak competition similar to those seen at Tech Ed and the Microsoft 2008 UK Launch.

The general format is as follows:

Contestants will present a 5 min session on a subject of their choice relating to Web Development or Web Design.  They will present in front of the REMIX audience and in front of a panel of judges.  If there are more than a  certain number of contestants (TBD), there will be ‘heats’ earlier in the day with the winners of the heats in a ‘speak-off’ in the evening session.  The ‘speak-off’ will take place as stated in the evening of the first day of MIX and the first prize is an XBox 360 + Goodies!

Prerequisites:

Mandatory

· Speakers must NOT have previously presented ‘full sessions’ at DDD, TechEd, DevWeek, SDN, SQLBITS, VBUG Conference, NxtGenUG FEST or any similar such conferences.

· Speakers must create a new session of their own with new material which can be based on existing material but cannot be a simple copy of it.

· Speakers must limit their session to as close to 5 mins as possible( overrunning time will cause the speaker to be marked down.)

· Speakers must not have previously won Speaker Idol or “Ready Steady Speak” UK Launch – Sorry to James Coulter J!

· Speakers must state their desire to enter the competition by no later than COP Monday 15^th September 2008.

Desirable

· Speakers should provide if at all possible their own laptop, but one can be provided if necessary.  The speaker should notify the organisers of any software prerequisites.

· Speakers should have spoken previously at a User Group meeting even if only for a 10 min mini-session or ‘nugget’.  This is NOT mandatory

To show my support and get a bit of exposure to a larger audience for speaking, I have offered to join in the fun and take part in the competition with a slightly re-worked version of my WatiN nugget that I performed in Southampton last month. So I'll be spending the next couple of weeks getting really nervous and trying to figure out the best presentation I can muster.

Remix 08 looks set to be a great event including at least one session from Scott Guthrie, I'll be there and it would be good to see some of you there too (if not only for the moral support!).