Category: Talks

Taking Photos of PowerPoint Slides

Talks

I recently gave a talk about people who take photos of PowerPoint presentations. I observed this behavior at a conference last year. Several people would take a photo of the PowerPoint slide. I imagine that they wanted to save the content to review later or to share with a colleague. This is me taking a photo of someone taking a photo of a PowerPoint slide.

I also noticed that during a keynote talk that I gave last year that no one took photos of my slides. Was I doing something wrong? Did I need something provocative on the slides?

Some slides have a lot of information on them. This slide from the Pentagon is the densest slide that I have ever seen.

I started thinking about how much data is contained on a normal PowerPoint slide. The average slide is about 150 KB. My Pixel 2 phone has a 12.2 MP camera. When I take a photo of a PowerPoint slide, I blow up the slide to 3,400 KB. That is a 22x multiplier of data.

No one is doing the studies, so I had to make up some stats. I assume that 2% of conference attendees take photos of slides.

“2% of all [conference] attendees take photos of PowerPoint slides.”
– Hans Scharler

Let’s play that out. For every 1,000 attendees of a conference, 68,000 KB of data gets generated by one 150 KB PowerPoint slide. 24 million people went to a conference in the United States last year. Yikes. Almost all of us back up our photos to Google or iCloud. So, now we have photos of slides stored beside photos of kids, significant others, and vacations forever. We will need to build data centers just to store photos of PowerPoint slides.

If you are interested in seeing my slides from my talk, check out SlideShare.

 

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Michael Stevens and Adam Savage at Brain Candy Live!

Talks

My friend and colleague, Paul Kassebaum, and I had the opportunity to meet Michael Stevens and Adam Savage after their touring show called, Brain Candy Live. Paul and I are extremely passionate about science education and community building. Michael and Adam have been very successful using TV and YouTube to build a culture of science and making. The show is filled with puns from Molecule Stevens, exploring fluid dynamics, and building up to a ping-pong ball finale. I particularly enjoyed Adam’s monologue about his father making a race car for a Christmas present while Adam was making a juggling club. This taught Adam as a young kid that you can make things that you don’t have or make things that don’t exist. Brain Candy Live was truly a remarkable show. Let’s demonstrate to the world that the US has a culture of science and making, and let’s get more scientists on the US currency (at least we have Ben Franklin).

Learning About Internet Memes – Ignite Talk

Talks

Ignite talks are 5 minute presentations about anything. The talks are designed to be quick, fun, and digestible. Ideas can spark revolutions. I had an idea for an Ignite talk about memes. I am fascinated by internet memes and how they get started. Through my research of memes, I ended up learning a lot more than I expected.

Richard Dawkins Meme

“My Meme” is a talk about memes, and how we are hardwired to spread ideas. Humans use a process of imitation, transformation, and combination to invent new things, change the culture, or just to share sometime new.

Internet of Things Pittsburgh Kicks Off on the Global Internet of Things Day April 9th

Talks

I have started a new Meetup — Internet of Things Pittsburgh (#iotpgh) — this meetup is open to all steel city innovators looks to explore the emerging  Internet of Things. Join me as your host on the first meetup on April 9th at 6pm at the TechShop Pittsburgh.

IoT Pittsburgh

In each meetup we will feature the following:

  • Current state of IoT
  • Privacy and Security
  • Technology trends
  • Business cases
  • Open discussion
  • IoT project demos
  • Industry presentations

Follow us on Twitter using the hashtag: #iotpgh and join us on Meetup.com.

Internet of Things Speaking Tour

Talks

As it worked out this summer, I have been asked to speak at a number of events around the United States about my connected projects, ThingSpeak, and the Internet of Things. Many of the events are over a 2 month period so it is a bit like being on tour, but on this tour we are talking the Internet of Things. I will be sure to tear up my hotel rooms and have unrealistic demands. Diva!

May 16 – Online Tweet Chat about Big Data

Join Hans Scharler (@scharler) of ioBridge at 2pm EST for a Tweet Chat about Big Data, M2M, and Internet of Things Platforms. This will be a live chat via Twitter – use the hashtag #DataCW to follow the conversation and to post questions. Ask Us Anything!

May 17 – Internet of Things and OEMs (Canton, OH / Private Event)

Hans Scharler (@scharler) of ioBridge discusses the intersection of Internet of Things (IoT) technology with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Learn how to incorporate IoT strategies into your business plan and roadmap, increase customer engagement, and maintain your competitive advantages.

May 21 – EntreTech Forum: The Internet of Things – A new Frontier for Entrepreneurs (Waltham, MA)

Hans Scharler of ioBridge will be joining the EntreTech Forum to discuss Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and the Internet of Things from a startup perspective. I will share my thoughts on business opportunities, commercialization, and things that I have learned since I co-founded ioBridge in 2008. The next EntreTech Forum session will be May 21, 2013 – 6:30pm held at the Emerging Enterprise Center in Waltham, MA. EntreTech Forum is in association with the Northeastern University’s School of Technological Entrepreneurship. More Info

May 23 – Geoweb Summit Internet of Things Panel

Hans Scharler (@scharler) will be returning to the Geoweb Summit’s Internet of Things Panel on May 23, 2013 in Dumbo Spot, New York in New York City. We are excited to return for a second Geoweb Summit. This event is perfect those looking to explore the Internet of Things and looking to connect the digital realm to physical location. Registration for the Geoweb Summit is available at geowebsummit.com. More Info

May 30 – Internet of Things and OEMs – Part 2 (Canton, OH / Private Event)

Hans Scharler (@scharler) of ioBridge returns to discuss the intersection of Internet of Things (IoT) technology with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Learn how to incorporate IoT strategies into your business plan and roadmap, increase customer engagement, and maintain your competitive advantages.

June 7-9 – Connected World M2M App Challenge

Join Hans Scharler (@scharler) of ioBridge for a hackathon held in Silicon Value to build connected apps. Each participant will receive access to the RealTime.io cloud platform and an Iota Wi-Fi evaluation kit. You get a change to win cash, prizes, and fame. The top prize is a feature article in Connected World Magazine and $3,000. Hans will be on hand teaching Internet of Things concepts and everything about the ioBridge platform. More Info

June 10-12 – Connected World Conference (Santa Clara, CA)

Hans Scharler (@scharler) and Robert Mawrey (@mawrey) of ioBridge will running an interactive exhibit at the Connected World Conference in Silicon Valley. Booth #207 will feature the original Twitter Toaster, a social coffee maker, the new ioBridge IO-201, and first look at new ioBridge cloud services and apps. Follow the activity on Twitter using the #CWConf13 hashtag. More Info

June 28-29 – Driving the Internet of Things with Mobile Apps – Appcelerator Titanium Mobile Conference (Baltimore, MD)

ticonf.us is a new mobile development conference primarily based around JavaScript and Appcelerator Titanium.

The “Internet of Things” is a pervasive concept and movement where devices are being connected to the Internet and interaction with devices, social networks, and people are being built. In general things are sensors and actuators which include things such as temperature sensors, energy monitors, radiation detectors, lights, thermostats, and sprinklers.

In the talk “Driving the Internet of Things with Mobile Apps” by Hans Scharler (@scharler), you will discover that mobile apps are leading the development of the Internet of Things. A mobile device becomes the user interface for a device and all of the supporting features. An app is the center of the entire experience and in fact the mobile device is an Internet of Things device. In order to keep up, apps need to be nimble and must support iOS and Android out-of-the-box. Hans will discuss how Titanium is being used by ioBridge to solve the common issues and patterns for the Internet of Things. More Info

Feel free to contact me (Hans Scharler) if you are interested in having Hans participate in your next conference or meeting.

Internet of Things DCWEEK Workshop during DCWEEK

Talks

DCWEEK invited me to host a dedicated workshop for the Internet of Things. We had a session learning about what IoT is all about, some basics of electronics, and then a hands on section. In a matter of minutes, we had things online. A group sent a tweet from a button and others moved a motor from a web page. It was great to see a roomful of adults happy to tinker with some new technology. What a great experience!


Internet of Things Talk at Carnegie Mellon University

Talks

Last weekend was the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. I gave a talk on the Internet of Things and building apps using the Perl programming language as the connective tissue between devices and web applications. I covered the basics on how you interface devices to the real-world. I also hosted a Hardware Hackathon and got to discuss hardware, connecting things, and Perl. I introduced everyone to my remixed theory of innovation. Just get out there and copy a well documented project, learn by transforming some part of the project, and combine it with other ideas. This is the only way innovation has ever happened… Thanks for the awesome time at PPW!

PPW2011 IoT Talk by Hans

Here are my slides from the 2011 Pittsburgh Perl Workshop:

Keynote Speech at Web of Things 2011

Talks

I had the distinct  privilege to be invited to give a keynote speech at the Web of Things Workshop 2011 at Pervasive 2011 in San Francisco on June 12, 2011.

The perspective of my presentation will be from my vantage point of being involved day-to-day working on Internet of Things projects with ioBridge and how we turned projects into products for consumers and manufacturers. Our perspective is that we see the Internet of Things being built from the ground up versus the top down. This means that there is so much innovation that will bubble up from small companies that will revolutionize the industries above them. I am honored to be part of the Web of Things Workshop.

Updates:

The Web of Things conference turned out great. I got a chance to meet the researchers and developers in other areas related to the Internet of Things and the cross over into wireless, social networking, and web technologies.

Here are the slides from my keynote presentation at the Web of Things Workshop: