Right now I’m working on my ApacheCon keynote. I decided not to use slides; actually, that’s not quite true, I have exactly four slides, which contain, in aggregate, five words. (I will, however, have props). This means that I pretty well have to write out the whole speech. I’m doing it here in ongoing as a blog entry, simply because I’ve got a highly-tuned writing environment where I can go fast. I’m not going to hit the “publish” button because unlike some people, I don’t have the courage to show the world half-baked works-in-progress, and anyhow, it contains a real actual Product Announcement. What’s interesting is that as I go back and forth editing the text, I’m conscious that these are words to be spoken, rather than read off the screen, and it makes a big difference. Among other things, it means that when I’m finished, if I decide to publish it here, I’m going to have to go back and do a major re-write, because while I hope it sounds natural coming off the stage, it sure doesn’t read like anything I’d write.
