I’m a big believer in learning from mistakes. My preference is to learn from other people’s mistakes. This saves me the time, effort, and embarrassment of making my own mistakes.
So in my efforts to improve my NVIS presentation I’ve been learning from NVIS papers I can find on the www, as well as slide decks from other ham’s presentations. There are some really good papers and presentations out there. There are also some unsatisfactory presentations out there. There’s a lot to be learned from both sorts.
Sometimes it’s that the graphics used to illustrate a point are poor, a complaint I have about my own presentation. Sometimes it’s that the information presented is vague rather than direct and crisp. One thing I’ve noticed in both my own presentation and those done by others is that it can be hard to get the order in which concepts are presented right, so that the whole thing flows naturally and questions are answered as they occur.
It finally occurred to me that although I dislike watching videos rather than reading on a subject, probably a bunch of people have put recordings of their presentation on Youtube, and that I could watch those videos and learn both from what they get wrong as well as what they get right.
As soon as I started searching on Youtube, I blundered across this excellent presentation by Paul Denisowski, KO4LZ. Well ordered, a great slide deck, and great delivery. It covers an astonishing amount with good clarity in just 19 minutes.
I’m both impressed with KO4LZ’s presentation and dissatisfied with mine. His presentation makes it clear that I have plenty of room for improvement.