Paul May

Electric Picnic was *amazing*. We saw some great bands, had great food and the camping was fun too. All the photos from the weekend are up on Flickr. Peruse at will.

Argie bargie in the women’s sprint semi finals.

Emma Davis Finishes 37th in the Women’s Triathlon at the 2008 Olympics. Well done to Emma, our first ever Olympic Triathlete! Update: There’s a very good report on the Triathlon Ireland website of Emma’s race.

Set your alarm clocks now! At 3am Irish time tomorrow, Emma Davis will become Ireland’s first Olympic Triathlete as she competes in the Beijing 2008 games. The race is taking place at the Ming Tomb Reservoir…great name. We haven’t been so lucky on the track or in the pool so far, so let’s hope Emma does herself proud and kicks some ass.

If you’ve haven’t managed to catch an Olympic triathlon on TV before make sure you check it out; it is incredibly exciting to watch! I am flying to the UK for work tonight, so I will probably not get to see the race….if any kind soul out there wants to DivX the race and make it available through some sort of filesharing application, that would be sweet.

Version 0.2 - Updated 09.07.08

This is a quick, hopefully useful Beginner’s Guide to Triathlon. I’ve been competing in the sport for a couple of years and I wanted to put down a few hints and tips to help anybody thinking of giving Triathlon a try. The sport has had a very positive impact on my life, it’s hugely popular, great fun and very achievable; regardless of whether or not you have a sporting background. You will also get to meet some amazing people if you decide to give it a go. I’ve written this guide from my own perspective; so it’s more appropriate for people coming from a non-sporting background, as I was when I started. Enjoy.

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A talk I gave at Barcamp Belfast 2008. A very early draft of something I might develop in the future. 20 mins talk + 10 mins q&a

Hypothesis: There are some incredibly talented people working in technology, design, business - and I’ve often wondered, how do these people stay so fresh, so highly skilled and so motivated when the nature of their industry and their business changes so quickly and so often. So I asked them. And what they told me was very interesting. For some people it’s a strategy, but In most cases these just happen to be some things that really great people seem to have in common. So, what are these traits, these strategies?

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I’ll be presenting at BarCamp Belfast. Notionally the topic is: “Everything You Know is Likely to be Wrong - Perspectives on creating value and remaining relevant in the technology industry.” Should be fun! I’ll post slides, notes and photos here next week.

Update: I’ve now uploaded my notes from the talk. it was a good day. The topic I landed on in the end was “Staying Relevant in Tech Industries“. It was a little abstract, but it was a good first stab at a topic I’d like to develop further.

I made it! Escape from Alcatraz was everything I hoped it would be; tough, fast, exciting. Hotter than I would have liked, but an absolutely great race. This is my full report of the lead up to the race, the race itself and the journey home. Read the rest of this entry »

In most surveys of fears and phobias, public speaking comes close to the top.  There is rarely a week where I don’t have to stand in front of a group to present a concept, a proposal, or a piece of work. It’s a skill I’ve had to learn and think about more and more as time goes by, and I still get it spectacularly wrong on occasion, but less than I used to.

In this article I wanted to write down a few of the points I’ve noted while giving talks, a few I’ve noted while watching others, and offer some basic advice to anybody interested in getting better at presenting their work or ideas.

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Two weeks to go.