February is an exciting time for wireless engineers all over the world because of the WLPC conference in Phoenix, AZ each year. My first one was in 2020 and I wrote a little about my experience here.
This year was a little different because I was not taking any boot camps. Nonetheless, I was very excited to attend. @HeyEddie had encouraged me to submit my presentation this time around. This is something I have never done before so I submitted a #TenTalk presentation on “Data Rate vs Cell Size”; which was voted and picked by the Wi-Fi Community. I was certainly dealing with a stage fright. But I’m thankful to so many people from the Wi-Fi community who encouraged me. When I first wrote my presentation, I felt pretty confident that I did a good job entering all the relevant information and I will read my slides. Until, I received an email from @KeithRParsons sent out to all the presenters on, “How to present”. I had to delete and rewrite my whole presentation, and I think the end result came out much better. Highly recommend reading this, especially if you have never presented before. I literally read this 3 or r times at least.
Ten Talk at the WLPC:
There are different sessions at the main conference, 60 min, 30 min, 20 min and 10 min. Ten Talk, as the name suggest is a short quick 10 min presentation on a specific topic. Goal is to present an idea/topic quickly without getting to much into the details (well you can’t because you only have 10 min). In a way it is a great idea for the first time presenters because it can help them with getting on the stage in front of the people and speak as well as create a document/content that will attract attention. Everyone has their own way to prepare for different things. I’m by far not an expert, but I’d like to share some of my experience with it and how I prepared for it. Hopefully this will help someone else.
- Hands and elbows: Everyone has different ways they like to position themselves, move their legs, body, hands, elbows etc. Recent conversation in a @cleartosend Slack channel Chad Freeman discussed keeping your elbows tucked in along with few other tips that were very useful. I decided to give it a try and I felt better tucking in my elbows and tweaking my hand gestures. Found an interesting link on Hand Gestures here.
- Slides: I read through the document Keith sent out to all the presenters and updated my presentation. Instead of having lots of text I decided to use images and increase the font size of all the text in my slides. Since my presentation was only for 10 min, it did not make sense to add lots of text in there any ways. Plus I’m presenting and NOT teaching being concise was crucial.
- Presentation Clicker: I did not think how awesome having one of these is until I started using it. Makes it so much easier to go through the slides, and if you have animations in your slides, this is a must have.
- Data Gathering: Getting factual data and displaying that is important and people will appreciate that more than you simply talking. I knew that I was getting ready to present to 100’s of smart wireless engineers from all over the world. So I setup a test lab and gathered some data.
- Peer Review: Personally I believe it is always a good idea to have a peer review done when doing a technical presentation and/or publishing a technical white paper etc. Thanks to Joel Crane and Eddie Forero for their review.
- Practice: This is important; I wanted to see myself so I can understand where I’m messing up. I created a zoom session, set it to record, shared my screen and then gave my presentation. After that I replayed the recording. I also practiced in front of a large mirror.
- Feel free to check out the slides located here.
My very first ever TenTalk and presentation ever. Please feel free to provide me feedback good or bad on the content as well as the way I presented.
On my Way:
Met up with my good friend @seanfreeguy at the airport.
As always room was very spacious and comfortable, internet access was average, still not enough outlets by the bed but the view was gorgeous.
Main Conference:
@WirelessJimP (Jim Palmer) started the WLPC 2023, presenting on, “Designing in Bad RF”, followed by @jjx (Jennifer (JJ) Minella), who was outstanding presenting without using a single slide on, “Secure Wi-Fi Migrations: A WPA3 How-To”. @JussiKiviniemi (Jussi Kiviniemi) showed some cool new updates on Hamina Network Planner.
@adriangranados (Adrian Granados) showed some new shinny stuff on all the wireless tools we all love. Great news for the Windows users, Wi-Fi Explorer is coming to windows also (as a MAC user makes me kinda jealous). Ok but I am very excited about Wi-Fi Signal 5, especially since I use this tool a lot.
After all the presentations there were deep dives. It is really difficult to pick a deep dive because each one is amazing. But we must pick one; this year I picked Packet Analysis and Wireshark for the WLAN Pro with Eddie Forero.
@mistermultipath (David Coleman) and @MackenzieWiFi (Peter Mackenzie) presented 60 min sessions on “Wi-Fi 7 Heaven” and “Analysis of Future”.
After Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 is already a hot topic and everyone has been asking and/or starting to discuss it in some manner. If you are looking to dig a little more into Wi-Fi 6E, I recommend downloading and reading Wi-Fi6 and 6E for Dummies by David Coleman (Note: It is behind a short registration).
Peter also announced his partnership with Hamina and shared updated Wi-Fi 6 and 6E curriculum on Juniper-Mist website located here. Highly recommend watching those videos.
All the TenTalks and 20 Min talks were amazing and I am looking forward to watching all the videos again once they get published. Each one targets a very specific topic and/or a challenge in the wireless industry and gives a quick overview. At times I end up watching some multiple times. If someone is showing any labs or testing I also try to replicate it to further understand the technology.
As always, vendor presentations after hours were very educational and helpful. Excellent opportunity to ask questions about their company and technology and meet their team.
Final Thoughts:
I am very fortunate and honored to have met so many amazing and new people this time around. I want to thank Jennifer (JJ) Minella @jjx for encouraging me every day until my presentation, thank you to Jason Panks for helping me with figuring out the issues with the external HDMI adapter, thank you Jonathan Davis for jumping in and fixing the Power Point issue at a crucial time. Everyone else I met, interacted with (I am sorry if I miss your name and we did not get a chance to take pics, I hope we can next time).
Thank you everyone, looking forward to seeing everyone in the next one. It’s been a pleasure meeting all these fine people.
