On the 27th of November I will be speaking on communities and records management at IRD 2008. I am honored to be asked as I was part of the team that started the whole thing back in 2000. Now it has grown and it has moved, so I now get to speak in Utrecht. About a week ago, I received an email asking me to send in my powerpoint so it can be printed and be added to the syllabus that is handed out at IRD 2008. A great thought to give people the information they heard so they can take it home. And I agreed at first. Then I started thinking about it. Handing over your presentation beforehand is really never a good thing to do. People will read it and not listen. Or they will not come at all as they have read it already. Or at least, that would be the case if the presentation would have lots of words and bullit points. But it won’t. It will be pictures, some screenshots and possibly a word here and there. That will not communicate in print anyway. And besides that, as I want to trigger my audience, I would love to have a free flowing bit where I might draw pictures on something to get a discussion going. That would not fit either. So, I have decided against it. I will not hand it over. However, you can get it. Once I have finished I will put the presentation up on my blog. And that is the only thing I will be handing over. An A4 with the location of that single page.