I recently did a couple of presentations work, as part of my new role as Manager of Web Technologies. These presentations were focused on sharing knowledge and help them be more productive with these technologies.

In July (2008), the presentation was on Web Development tools. Background: The company has been using web interfaces (and Ajax) for more aspects of its products and more software engineers are being asked to know something about the User Interface development/functionality. Since I was one of the key UI developers, I was asked to share some of the tools that I use regularly that makes the job easier.

The slides will not have the same impact as it did when presented, because a large portion of the time was used in examples or discussion of ways each tool is helpful. The lunch-time presentation lasted about 1.5 hrs.

Slides: Web Development Tools

This past Friday (Jan-16-2009), I also presented on Wikis. Background: A number of engineers had tried using wikis without much success. However, each attempt had been aimed at a very narrow use-case (maybe one project, or one product). Our VP of Engineering had become interested in trying to make it work on a larger scale (all of Engineering, or further). So this presentation was intended to provide the entire engineering staff with an introduction to the internal wiki, and enough training to get started building the wiki.

The first half of the presentation covers a general explanation of what a Wiki is and Good/Bad uses of them. And the second half covers how to create pages and use the Wiki. This lunch-time presentation also lasted about 1.5 hrs.

Slides: Wikis