Live from NIT Calicut!

I’m blogging from NIT Calicut at the moment using my (ahem!) Sony VAIO through an awesome WiFi connection. 🙂

Did you just ask why/how/what? Well, as I’d mentioned in my previous post, I was invited to do a talk on blogging at FOSSMeet, the Free & Open Source convention held at the college. First, I was skeptical of the whole invite thing. Could this be a hoax? How could such a prestigious institution like NIT invite a total n00b like me to do a talk? The skepticism lasted until I reached the venue (or rather, was royally escorted in a Mahindra Scorpio) from the Kozhikkode railway station, where I arrived on a fully-funded Third A/C Railway ticket. :-)Being my first visit to NIT, I was dumbfounded seeing the enormity of the entire campus. 420 acres of academia! Whoa. Alright, that might not seem big when compared to a whole bunch of IITs, but it was certainly 70 times as huge as my college, which is just 6.2 acres. 😉

Anyways, the event commenced on the dot. There where highly invigorating seminars going on at three venues simultaneously. Events that would satisfy not just a geek but the common man. We learned how to edit video in Linux, some light was shed on Python programming, Mr Paul Frieds, Chairman of Fedora spoke to us through video conference… and much much more! Although the number of participants weren’t as high as the previous years, the sessions were top class. And those who didn’t make it missed a LOT, period.

Kiruba Shankar speaking at FOSSMeet 2008. Hope I too get such a crowd. 🙂

Live videoconference by Paul Frieds (Chairman of Fedora) at FOSSMeet (Minutes before my speech!) 😛

Paul Frieds answering questions

Speaking of which, my talk hasn’t started yet. 😛 My event is the last one of the day and is supposed to start at 9.30 PM. 🙂 I hope I’ll be able to reach the standards of all the eminent speakers who spoke here. In my talk, I’ll be shedding some light on the nuances of blogging. A few things not everybody is aware of!

And after the delay caused by Mr Frieds, my talk began. It wasn’t a very great performance, per se. There were hardly some 30-35 listeners for my session. It was already 10.30 PM and most people were in the different stages of sleep. What’s more, even I was! But I’d come all the way from Thiruvananthapuram just for making the denizens of NIT understand the prowess of blogs and I couldn’t move away from my task. While Frieds was concluding his webconference, I got out of the ‘Aryabhatta’ hall, washed my face, tucked my shirt in and readied myself for the kill. I was about to set out to do an arduous task – to revive some 35-odd delegates from their tired selves and put across the power of blogs to them.

I had plans to start off with a video about Web 2.0: a hilariously funny one that was presented at the Web 2.0 conference early last year. Unfortunately, there were issues with my Movie Player and the video refused to play at the last moment. A terrible setback, that was for it was one among the most potent weapons in my arsenal to wake all the guys from various states of slumber. Disheartened, I moved on to the first slide of my blog. I started by ‘definining’ what blogging is, in my own fashion. Then I went on to talk about a few milestones in the world of blogging, various types of blogs, et al. After giving all the background info, I shared a few tips for better blogging, and gave ideas for great blog posts. I tried my best to put across all these in a tongue in cheek fashion, giving personal examples to lighten the mood.

Next, I started talking about Blog Monetization. Making money from the internet raised a few eyebrows indeed. I also gave a few SEO tips for the grabs, good ones that have worked for me. Then, I concluded by breaking some myths about blogging. And ended with a bang, sort-of. 🙂 Thankfully, the Web 2.0 video started working after my talk and people had a good laugh. Again, on request, I showed them my movie, which again elicited quite some guffaws.

Here’s my presentation:

I wound up my session to standing ovation (er… sort-of!). After sharing my slides with a few delegates and clearing doubts, I quickly ran away with my roomie Rajeev (a Linux-Virtualization freak) to our room at the International Students hostel. I didn’t mess my session up. Even as I type this into my (ahem!!) VAIO using my phone’s unpardonably-slow bluetooth connection in Train, I’m happy about my session and the whole NIT experience.

Guys, you rock!