We have the RESULTS – So just how did I fair @ my 1st SQLPASS conference as a speaker
So having just received our session surveys responses from PASS team and after the initial scramble to look to see where I was scored in the overall league rankings….
<sad face> I was not in the TOP 5 of my Category <insert your astonished look here> but then with some of the biggest and most accomplished speakers around to compete
with in the “league” then I can hardly be that surprised
However I’m proud to hold a TOP 10 ranking from the conference, my session was indeed a popular one with 310 attendees (SQLPASS stats) and this made it the 9th highest attended session
of the conference
So now onto scrutinizing those 147 surveys (~ 50% of the audience) to understand the finer points of my overall rating I received 4.03
this was not as high as I would have liked and I wanted to understand the key reasons why
So I have performed a breakdown of the 5 Questions, each of the 5 questions recieving a score from 1 – 5 for each of the survey questions.
From a quick breakdown of the ratings I received the following (Avg. Scores), a few top scores J and then a ranging array of scores mainly failing between 3.4 and 4.6 along
with some low scoring ones that were of a concern as to why they had low ratings
Some surveys also had comments and these will be helpful to aid me to improve my presentation for the future
|
# Surveys |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
3 |
7 |
6 |
13 |
11 |
13 |
14 |
11 |
15 |
12 |
8 |
25 |
| Rating |
1.0 |
1.2 |
1.4 |
1.6 |
1.8 |
2.0 |
2.2 |
2.4 |
2.6 |
2.8 |
3.0 |
3.2 |
3.4 |
3.6 |
3.8 |
4.0 |
4.2 |
4.4 |
4.6 |
4.8 |
5.0 |
| % Surveys |
0% |
1% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
1% |
0% |
1% |
3% |
2% |
5% |
4% |
9% |
8% |
9% |
10% |
8% |
10% |
8% |
5% |
17% |
|
Survey Question |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
|
| How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills? |
0 |
8 |
46 |
55 |
38 |
3.84 |
| How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? |
1 |
1 |
12 |
48 |
85 |
4.46 |
| How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session? |
1 |
5 |
20 |
54 |
67 |
4.23 |
| How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials? |
2 |
11 |
39 |
55 |
40 |
3.82 |
| Did you learn what you expected to learn? |
3 |
11 |
38 |
57 |
38 |
3.79 |
| |
7 |
36 |
155 |
269 |
268 |
|
| |
1.0% |
4.9% |
21.1% |
36.6% |
36.5% |
4 & 5’s |
| How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills? |
0% |
5% |
31% |
37% |
26% |
63% |
| How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? |
1% |
1% |
8% |
33% |
58% |
90% |
| How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session? |
1% |
3% |
14% |
37% |
46% |
82% |
| How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials? |
1% |
7% |
27% |
37% |
27% |
65% |
|
Did you learn what you expected to learn? |
2% |
7% |
26% |
39% |
26% |
65% |
So now I have visualized the results, I looked deeper @ the surveys that got either a 4’s & 5’s, it is fairly evident they found my knowledge (90%) & abstract (82%) as mainly OK
maybe even verging on respectable scores for my 1st time as a PASS speaker, however when I look @ the other 3 questions
The presentation ones scored less well L with my skills (63%) and materials (65%) and finally the question “expect to learn” with a less than impressive (65%)
This all points to a less then brilliant scoring, but maybe still perhaps a respectable showing for my 1st time around, especially when I take into account that
some comments & scores highlighted difficulties they had @ the back of the packed room in seeing the slides & demos clearly and thus getting the most
from my session, so it is not something I had much control over, but I will be “more concerned about minimizing“ for future events
I clearly do need to continue to improve my presentation skills, and will endeavour to take on board the constructive comments like ‘too much content’, ‘focused & slower demos”
Although some comments like ‘answering questions in session” I will continue to do this as I believe that is the forum to do those and I do allow time for those in my sessions
So finally how do I rate my own performance, well I would give myself a decent B (4.3/5) and the comments along the lines of “needs to slow down, and focus on his delivery”
I hope I get another chance oneday to do SQL PASS sessions (perhaps even in 2012) and will see if we can get into that competitive TOP 5 category
or @ least closer to it that I got this time around
FINALLY a heart-felt thanks to all of the SQL PASS team for giving me the opportunity to speak and I just hope that they consider it to have been a good decision
I LOVED every minute of it !!!!
I also was part of a lightening talk session, but due to the nature of those it is difficult to determine what my score was as part of that..