pInOy MeD [it] tEcH: My First Lecture / Demo outside Microsoft Grounds! :)

The Preparation

Sometime in July, a member of the Windows7ako community, Justin Ryan Siy from De La Salle University asked me if I can have a talk about emerging technologies in their class. He told me that it’s a lecture / seminar type so I ask him if Office 2010 will be a good topic, then he approved. I was a bit hesitant before for this will be my first time, I mean I already have several demos about Windows 7 and Office 2010 but it’s just within Microsoft grounds and in front of familiar faces. This will be a challenge for me. To my excitement I asked my friend Christopher to join me in my first official demo and I got a positive response. We then collaborate with Justin and Ray Angelo (Justin’s group mate) what will be our topic and how long the talk will last. It was agreed that we will be talking Windows 7 and Office 2010 for three hours including the question and answer portion after the talk. A week after Justin ,informed me that the date is already finalized and it will be on August 14, 2010 at 2:30-5:30 in the afternoon.

It’s eleven days before the event, I met with Christopher and reminded him about the event, but unfortunately because of his hectic schedule in his job, he told me that he can’t come with me. I was a bit frustrated after that. August 5, 2010 during the Windows7ako meetup at Gweilo’s bar I asked John Erwin Magno (another active member of the community) if he can join me at De La Salle University, without any hesitation he said yes. So I informed Christopher that I got another partner and he told me that he will still come if he can.

In short, I coordinated with Erwin about the topic that we will discuss. Suddenly I received a private message in my Facebook account that says our lecture will be compressed to one hour instead of three. The time is a bit short but I said it will do. Erwin and I even meet at a nearby mall to discuss what will happen in the said seminar. We agreed that I’ll be talking MS Word and Excel, and MS PowerPoint and One Note for him, and for the Web App we’ll just demo the co-authoring feature since we have a limited time.

The Most Awaited Day

August 14, 2010 the day of our lecture / seminar, i ,m a bit nervous for it’s my first time to have a live demo outside Microsoft grounds or outside the windows7ako and Office2010tayo community. During our Facebook chat, Erwin also told me that he’s a bit nervous too. Even an experienced instructor like Erwin who teaches IT subjects can be nervous for the topic is not really his forte, so imagine me, a Medical Technologist who is going to talk about techie things! So we proceeded at La Salle for our seminar. We went to a convenience store first to buy a battery for my camera (for documentation of course hehe :p) I sent Justin a message that were just in a nearby convenience store, he answered and ask us to wait for a while for he is still securing a gate pass for us. Finally at exactly 4:30 PM, I received a message telling us to proceed to the south gate university. He fetched us at the gate and after paying our respect to the guard, we’re on our way to the seminar venue. We arrived the the venue at exactly 4:45 PM, setup our laptops and waited for some students to come. We are expecting at least 50 attendees but unfortunately due to a conflict with schedules only 18 students came. But it didn’t bothered me since we’re already there, our duty is to proceed with the lecture as planned.

I started by introducing ourselves, we also told the students that we are an active member of the windows7ako and office2010tayo community. As the first lecturer I asked them if they already seen Office 2010 or evaluated the Beta version. Unfortunately I got a negative answer, all of them are still using either Office 2007 and some Office 2003. To my mind it good for they will be amazed into what we will show them. I introduced what is MS Office 2010, talked about Word and Excel 2010. On the other hand, Erwin discussed the power of PowerPoint 2010 and supposedly One Note 2010 but due to limited time he opted to discuss the Office 2010 plug-ins which is the Ribbon Hero and the pptPlex. Our last topic should be the Co-Authoring feature of the Office WebApp but unfortunately we failed to hook up to the university’s network after several trials. So we have just discussed how the co-authoring feature works and how will help them to be more productive in their daily tasks.

The students have a very positive response on the new productivity suite. They were really amazed what Microsoft Office 2010 can do to their assignments, projects and daily tasks. They learned a lot and also discovered some tools that are already present in the previous versions of Office but are rarely used can make their tasks easily.

We ended up by promoting the windows7ako and office2010tayo community. We encourage them to join the community and asked them that if they have more questions they can always post there and we’ll be willing to answer. We also raffled three Office 2010 shirts (courtesy of Microsoft of course – thanks Mellie!), and have a picture taken with the attendees. As a token of appreciation, Justin handed a DLSU paper bag, inside is a DLSU mug (thanks Justin!).

So there, this is my official demo / lecture on emerging Microsoft technology, outside Microsoft grounds. Hope this won’t be the last. I really enjoyed the experience! To the members of windows7ako and ofiice2010tayo community, thanks for the support and encouragement, it really helped me a lot, thanks Erwin, I owe you one! Smile