I just spend a week in San Diego at TechEd. Since I wasn’t speaking or had any other major responsibilities other than some light booth duty at the Code Magazine booth, I got to attend quite a few sessions for once. I found the sessions to be very variant  in quality from great to just plain horrible. For a conference like TechEd I was actually quite surprised to run into so many bad sessions.

The problem with many sessions was that the content seemed really dumbed down or pretty damn sparse. Sort of like an introduction to the given topic without drilling into some of the more important details. As a frequent speaker I realize very well that an hour and fifteen minutes is a short time to present on even a reasonably complex topic, but if you end up going to a session getting only the 10,000 foot overview that you might get by reading a one page summary that session is failing its task. Quite a few other sessions I found that although the speaker was a good presenter, there seemed to be more focus on entertaining the crowd than actually making a point or teaching the important points. A number of others yet were too much of a dog and pony show – especially some of the showcases that didn’t really answer any question about the how of the applications and implementations. Wasn’t that the whole point? <g>

So what makes a good session? Obviously this isn’t a simple answer since there’s a big difference what type of topic you’re dealing with.

In my experience it's a combination of things. A good speaker will make even a mediocre topic work well and interesting, but ultimately good topics and content drive a great session. If you walk out of a talk and were just entertained I wouldn't consider that a great session by any means. I went to several sessions at TechEd like that and it's disappointing at a technical conference.

I was disappointed by a lot of sessions at TechEd this year - which mostly was due to bad organization of topics and bad presentation more so than the content. But I also saw a number of topics by excellent speakers that weren't all that great. Good presentation but light on content. Some topics were toned down so much all the meat of the session seemed to be missing. Others were drowned out by crowd pleasing tactics. Some were too much of a dog and pony show - way too prepared and obviously so to hide problems (a number of .Next sessions from Microsoft especially). The funny thing was that you expected at least one or two of these to go wrong which they invariably did!

On the other hand I also went to a few great sessions where you walked in and got what you expected and more. Sessions where you come out excited about a topic or with a few tips that make you more productive are best.

As a speaker myself I know how difficult it is to please everyone. There’s always the battle between balancing content for those that think the session is too advanced to not advanced enough and as a speaker one has to strike a balance that hopefully has some appeal to both ends of the spectrum. I also often hear the complaint that there are too many slides at sessions in general. I’m a firm believer that you have to look at the content presented. Obviously some topics don’t have a lot to show or demonstrate since they are more abstract in which case you pretty much have to rely on slides. At TechEd there were a lot of sessions that were all slides – and in a couple of cases that was actually OK. But I also think that when possible it’s vitally important to mix up presentations a little to keep the attendees attention. I’m usually pretty good about staying alert during sessions I attend but this time at TechEd there were a few where I almost fell asleep. This is not good <g>. Variety in a session is important! For a typical technical presentation the format that seems to work best is to make a point (usually with a slide or two) and then demonstrate the point with a practical example or demo.

I also like to see some code if I’m going to a development session. I hate nothing more than going to dev session and never seeing anything related to code. I don't want to get dazzled by feature after feature, but show me how it works. Or at least explain the mechanics in a rough outline. I want to see what happens behind the scenes and it’s the job of a presenter to provide a concise snippet of code that explains a concept without loosing the attendee in details. That’s easier said than done, but if necessary a piece of code needs to be summarized or mocked up for a slide to make the point. In addition, I think a little bit of code is great to keep people alert – they have to think a little when looking at that code to figure it out – it helps keeps people involved.

A great session should above all give you what you came for (follow the session abstract/title), flow and keep the attendee interested. This totally varies for topics. Some sessions work well with slides, others work well with more code. Personally, I like to see code, so if I go to a technical session I want to see the presenter show me a glimpse of what's going on but without going overly deep to loose me in the details. Key points, so when you walk out you remember the key points.