Secrets of past DemoJam winners: start early and keep it simple!
What are the biggest mistakes made by past DemoJam winners and finalists? We asked them so that you do not have to find out yourself the hard way. And with only four weeks to go to the submission deadline, you may want to heed their advice: start preparing your demo early, keep it simple, don’t try to cram as many features as you can into the demo and, as Ian Kimbell told us just recently: rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
Leo van Hengel. TechEd DemoJam Madrid 2012. ‘The Garbage Collector’: A Cloud Solution That Simplifies Your Waste Administration Process.
Because of time pressure the last week before the event we were still working our technical solution. So we had very little time to prepare our stage act and on the day of the event we were still rehearsing our lines. So prepare well and reserve enough time for your stage act.
Suresh Venkatasubramaniyan. TechEd DemoJam Bangalore 2012 with Reuse Code Using SAP HANA – Cut the System Landscape Boundaries Safely.
Have a backup plan (and if possible a backup for the backup). Most importantly have someone to substitute you at the last moment as Murphy’s Laws usually go full steam during such situations (running nose, fever, getting stuck in a mire, held hostage by werewolves etc.)
Wilfrid Real. TechEd DemoJam Madrid 2012. Remix: Your Report on My Data.
Don’t try to cover everything , stay simple and be practice Zen-like serenity on stage.
Will Powell. TechEd DemoJam Winner Madrid 2012 with CEO Vision.
The biggest mistake was understanding the potential pitfalls of technology on stage rather than in the test environment. For CEO Vision we use augmented reality and hand tracking relying on multiple cameras, which under the extreme variance of stage lighting required a minor adjustment to be made. The advice we would like to pay forward is to be prepared and test your demo thoroughly.
Ronald Konijnenburg. Finalist, TechEd DemoJam Madrid 2012 with Mike the Sales Guy.
Our biggest mistake was to underestimate the time which goes in to building a good demo. Start early. You will always get a visit from Mr. Murphy!
Jasvir Gill. TechEd DemoJam Las Vegas 2012 with ‘Big Data In Action’: AlertEnterprise and SAP HANA Monitor Insider Threats at Airports.
It took too long to complete the demo and didn’t anticipate the potential delays.
David Trastour. TechEd DemoJam Madrid 2012. Remix: Your Report on My Data.
Make sure that your message is very crisp and very clear. As technologists, we all have a tendency to want to expose all of the cool features of our solution. If you do this, not only will your message be muddled up, but you will run out of time. At the last DemoJam, we tried to squeeze too much into the 6 minutes and we had to rush the end of our demo. DemoJam time seems to fly faster than normal time…
Rohit Mahajan. TechEd DemoJam Bangalore 2012. Clean It (C0-ordinate Better).
Don’t trying to add too many features…..
With the advice above in mind, head over to the TechEd DemoJam 2013 main page on SCN for lots of other pieces of advice on building your DemoJam submission, and remember it is still time to avail of our free Demo Clinic offer!