Recently I was checking out the news at my Alma Mater when I discovered an article about some students winning a contest sponsored by VMware.  The contest just involved producing a video, so nothing very cutting edge about it.  However, the article also links to the beginning of the keynote speech where the video was shown.  What interests me is the speaker at the keynote (He shows up towards the end of the clip).

I’ll just be blunt.  He’s terrible.  In fact, it was so bad I don’t want to go back and watch the video to catch who it was.  Now, he might be very intelligent, but he can’t speak publicly and because of that I immediately tuned out.

Why do we in the computer industry put on glitzy productions only to send out incredibly boring speakers? Why not just save some money and get right to the speech, instead of trying to use gimmicks to lure people in? Why not use the money to pay programmers better? Or use the money and pay for a better speaker?

Gimmicks and terrible speakers don’t mix.  The combination isn’t worth it.  Why the industry does this is beyond me. It doesn’t make sense.