www.dpingram.com

My thanks go to Christian Ahlert for having the foresight (not to mention drive) to organise the whole Minibar thing. The last event on April 20 was my first visit, and what a mix of people I found there, I’ll def be at the next one on May 25.

For those that don’t know, Minibar is an event where you can meet up with and network with a whole variety of web2.0/startup people, from media, to VCs, to technicians, to designers, to business people – all in one eclectic mix. I found it closely mirrored the events like SF New Tech Meetup and SF Beta that go one regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, and that is a GREAT thing for London and the UK.

I was fortunate the have the opportunity to present izimi at the last event, I don’t mind telling you it was an interesting experience, stood up on that stage, all eyes turned towards you, beers and wines in hands ().

I learnt something that I’d like to pass on to future Minibar presenters, now this is going to sound obvious, but, here it is anyway… do a demo. Don’t just talk, don’t just use slides. Yes, that’s it, if at all possible do a demo, a demo speaks a thousand slides. For my sins I chose to do slides with a few lines of notes, thinking 5 mins was too short to demo but it somehow felt awkward. In comparison, Gavin O’Carroll from Rememble.com did a one man demo show. Now, it was a valiant effort by one man trying to operate keyboard, mouse, and hold the microphone simultaneously while battling with terrible feedback. But still it worked out well – better than my slides to be sure.

So, yes, if you are presenting at Minibar I recommend a demo: with just five minutes you can either try to cram in all the facts with words and slides, or you demo just two of three key things and then leave the audience to follow it up – after all, they are a smart bunch.

The Minibar event on Friday night at The Truman Brewery in East London was a great session, with (i guess) 200+ people in attendance. Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu/Canonical gave a headline talk about Ubuntu a viable open source and free Linux alternative to the MS dominance. I also personally met up with Glan Thomas of design shop Substance, Alex Straub of Truphone, Paul O’Nolan a consultant at IRRI, Gavin O’Carroll at Rememble, and Margaret Gold of Mobile Innovation.

By and large the presentations were good, but most could have done with a simple demo (our own included). The only demo I remember was Gavin O’Carrol from Rememble.com, and it was a valiant effort by one man trying to operate keboard, mouse, and hold the microphone simultaneously while battling with terrible feedback. Still, well done Gavin, it worked out well.

Yes, so izimi should have demoed, thats the feedback I’ve been getting, so we’ll do next time. I learnt a lesson: with just five minutes you can either try to cram in all the facts with words and slides, or you demo just two of three key things and then leave the audience to follow it up. Conslusion is that to this technically aware audience a set of slides comes across as bull*, but a demo speaks volumes. Shame that when I spoke to the organizers a demo wasnt even suggested as possible.

Another that would have benefitted from a demo was Truphone. Alex showed us a really cool demo of what his VoIP over WiFi from your mobile (throw away your SIM!!!) could do while we chatted before the presos started. Then when he did his 5 minutes he just talked and it was no-way as interesting. My lesson is learnt.

I’ll be speaking about izimi and meeting other internet people at the next Minibar event in London on April 20th.

Minibar is a social-business evening in East London which offers people a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, Creative Commons, web applications, social networking and general Web 2.0 (3.0) mayhem & fandango. Usually there are upwards of 200 of London’s - and beyond - finest web entrepreneurs.

Go here for info on Openbusiness and Minibar in general
Go here for info specific to the April 20th event, attendees list, speakers, etc.