Meet The Grumpies
by Volker Weber
The room monitor is on stage:
Comments
Ok, I'll ask the question: Why is the room monitor on stage?
So that everyone in the audience can see what kind of "guidance" the room monitor provides to the speaker. He is a good sport to play along so nicely.
I believe that reading Bob's post after his appearance last year will answer your question:
On the other hand, someone else thought it was just overkill for making sure that the session didn't go over due to not being able to see the "10 minutes" sign.
Here's the story on the room monitor (Ben). Paul had done a session in that room the previous day, and by mistake, Ben had at one point held up the wrong warning sign, confusing Paul. When Paul saw him again, he decided to drag him up on the stage with us as payback. Ben was an incredibly good sport about it, and went along.
At one point, as Paul started talking, I motioned to Ben, who then held up the "Wrap up" slide. Paul stopped talking and stared at Ben, while everyone laughed. All good fun.
@Timothy, I'm not sure what the relevance of my post from last year is to this, it was a prank that had nothing to do with politics.
@Bob,
My thought (WAG as it turns out) was that IBM reacted to what you did last year on their stage by putting a hall monitor on stage with you this year.
To clarify Bob's comments
Here's the story on the room monitor (Ben). Paul had done a session in that room the previous day, and by mistake (Ben was not told the session was moved by 15 minutes, so held up the correct sign, based on what he knew -- change management failure!), Ben had at one point held up the wrong warning sign, --confusing Bill Buchan.-- When Paul saw him again, he decided to drag him up on the stage with us as payback. Ben was an incredibly good sport about it, and went along.
At one point, as Paul started talking, I motioned to Ben, who then held up the "Wrap up" slide. Paul stopped talking and stared at Ben, while everyone laughed. All good fun.
