Televangelism in IT

Televangelism  in IT - does this work? I like a good show as much as anyone - but two presentations I came across recently left me.. er.. well - confused I guess. While looking for content on the topic of identity management (CardSpace along with identity selectors that have been implemented on other platforms) I came across this... a 2007 Friday BrainShare session at Novell . The opening act is impressive.

A couple of days ago I watched most of A Lap around "Oslo"  at PDC2008 . Douglas Purdy is electric. Both of these presentations have a few things in common. There's a charismatic host, a series of well rehearsed presentations, plenty of visual queues and powerful message delivery with a corresponding level of applause. I guess it works since I won't easily forget the opening moments of the Novell presentation. (Neither of course can compete with Stephen Jobs  who is probably the archbishop  of holy product presentations.) There was some good stuff in both of these talks- and webcasts, podcasts, videocasts etc. are an amazing way to get a veritable firehose of information into your frontal lobe fast.

I've learned a ton from good ones.  But sigh... I just don't feel moved the by the evangelical style adopted by the presentations above - in fact until I can get past the style of presentation I have a little trouble concentrating on the message. I love watching the TED  talks - and I love watching presentations that are well rehearsed, well informed - fluid and even humorous.

But, if you ask me, the big show we're gonna change your life style of televangelism in IT - looks just a little out of place. Ah well - to each their own... :-)