Andy Warren made a trip to St. Louis this past weekend to put on a speaker workshop for our user group.  Several times a year he offers the free workshop at End to End Training in Orlando. We had a pretty good turn out. Hopefully, we will get a few new speakers for our group.

Andy had lots of good advice for beginner speakers as well as those more experienced. One interesting tip is to have a helper in the audience, especially at a conference. The helper can gather up the laptop, power cord and other equipment at the end of the presentation so the speaker can guide audience members with questions away from the front of the room. The speaker doesn’t end up leaving anything behind and can get out of the way so the next speaker can set up.

We also spent some time at the end of the day talking about SQL Saturday. We are considering having a SQL Saturday in St. Louis next year.  Andy has put a lot of work and resources into helping user groups host their own events. Be sure to send him a note if you are considering something like SQL Saturday for your own SQL user group.

Thanks again, Andy! We really appreciate you sharing your time and the benefit of your experience.