Real men don't need PowerPoint

Summary: Steve Yegge explains the importance of branding at Open Source Convention 2007. And he ain't got no PowerPoint!

Imagine yourself invited to speak at a technical conference. You do your homework: pick a topic, build the slides, bring a laptop. You are ready to go, but once you get on stage, you realize that the projector does not work and tech support guys can't fix it. What do you do?

As Steve Yegge showed at OSCON 2007, you do not need PowerPoint to give an interesting speech. Sure, a couple of slides would be helpful, but they were not essential. If you want to hear Steve's perspective on the importance of branding (branding is not only relevant to major corporate brands, such as Coca-Cola, but equally applies to the work of your development team), or if you are interested in learning how other corporations handle justifiably bad brand perceptions (so that you know what to expect on the next screw-up), watch this 25-minute video (if the link does not work, try this one). As an introduction, you can also read Steve's How To Make a Funny Talk Title Without Using The Word "Weasel" post.

Additional references:
How I made my presentations a little better