http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660I also seen it at local MS events, but with the opposite effect: Most speakers acknowledged the slides were given to them, and then frequently diverged from them to give their own material. Some even claimed to have revised the slides with their material before the lecture. I believe MS like doing it this way, so they can make sure that legal/marketing has their say on the content. (Raymond Chen tells a story where marketing revised his slides so that every reference to "VB" was changed to "Microsoft Visual Basic.NET (tm)", Unfortunately, in that presentation, "VB" stood for "vector buffer") http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment5http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment5Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:16:20 GMTI wonder if the prepared presentation has a "Questions?" slide. http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment4http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment4Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:03:19 GMTI find that a large part of the appeal to attend an event is to ask the speakers questions afterward. Much of the best content comes from question and answer sections and the discussion. I agree, it would be very deceiving for those looking at a schedule in which the speaker follows a script and can't or won't be answering questions. http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment3http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment3Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:21:27 GMTI've been to a few Microsoft local events where they did this. It is usually a huge waste of time for most of the attendees. The reader of the script usually doesn't know the technology, so asking questions is useless ("I'll have to get back to you on that" ... and they never do). http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment2http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment2Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:48:09 GMTInteresting are you aloud to have an opinion if the material is crap? or are you expected to be a robot and just present? As you say in this case an actor is what you need :P http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment1http://ayende.com/3748/the-teleprompter-presentation-anti-pattern#comment1Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:38:28 GMT