Short talk

Today was the first time (after 6 seminars on Health Informatics) that I managed to exceed fifteen minutes when giving a talk for which I am given 30 minutes to deliver. I either speak too fast or I forget some details that I would like to point out.

I guess, after talking about the same topic (Visualizing Health Data) for the past three seminars, I've finally hit my stride. In the first of the six seminars, I talked about the Open Medical Record System while in the second and third, about Mapping for Health.

I might be changing topic next time again so I will have to readjust. I was the one who proposed the current topic. I would like to change my topic to "The Use of Health Data" instead. I feel that the process before the generation of the visualization itself is more important to discuss.

I would like to think that I am a good speaker but I do recognize that I do have shortcomings. I am still trying to work on obliterating clutch words such as "um" and "so". I also noticed that I am getting a bit rusty with my spoken English which I shall discuss here some other time.

There's a delicate balance between being knowledgable and appearing like a know-it-all. It just irritates me to no end when people pretend to know something they know nothing about. I do try to give off as much confidence as possible because I really do research and practice what I teach.

Most of the audience are health professionals so I try, most of the time, to act like I'm asking for validation when talking about hardcore health stuff like the use of the partogram. But that's like less than 10 percent of the time.