My favorite comment after the speech: "Honestly, when you got up on stage, I thought 'Oh cripes, an engineer with no social skills.' Little did I know it was all part of the act!"
Hah, the joke is on you, sucker :)
(Joking aside: this is the best speech I've given in my life by a factor of "lots" judging by audience reaction, but I did competitive public speaking for most of a decade. It isn't totally anomalous that I'd be decent at it.)
I found you engaging and fresh in your approach (but I don't see that many presentations so what do I know) but to be uber-critical you spoke a bit too quickly at times. Usually this is an indication of nervousness but you appear to suggest (above) you have so much experience that this wouldn't be a problem.
Incidentally I suck at public speaking and tend to make nervous quips and self-deprecate (which tends to make one look worse) like you did with your "10 second [...] shoulda practised [...]" interlude. Did I mention that I'm a bit too heavy on the negative critique usually too ...
Couple of points/queries:
Is the colour of the guys you're selling software to relevant? You specify that they're white guys but I wasn't sure if this is a specific comment on demographics of people who buy software or if it was something else?
Second, knowing when a battle was doesn't make you intelligent though it might make you knowledgeable or nerdy. That aside Google don't appear to sell themselves on the issue of their customers presenting themselves as knowledgeable. Surely the benefit they sell most is simply "not wasting time looking for stuff" (Bing do the same, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLV_MTvshGg).
Usually this is an indication of nervousness but you appear to suggest (above) you have so much experience that this wouldn't be a problem.
My ex-husband is extremely introverted. He learned to speak in public but it never, ever stopped being a sweaty-palms, knees-shaking type experience for him. (And he was double majoring in computer sci/history when we divorced.) For some people, experience doesn't really resolve this issue.
My favorite comment after the speech: "Honestly, when you got up on stage, I thought 'Oh cripes, an engineer with no social skills.' Little did I know it was all part of the act!"
Hah, the joke is on you, sucker :)
(Joking aside: this is the best speech I've given in my life by a factor of "lots" judging by audience reaction, but I did competitive public speaking for most of a decade. It isn't totally anomalous that I'd be decent at it.)