Friday Philosophy – Presenting Leads to Drinking, Discuss

Just a quick Friday Philosophy {the day job is very demanding at the moment, thus the silence on the Blog front}

I’m presenting in Leeds at the start of July on UKOUG AIM SIG on “The First Few Things You Need To Know About Exadata”. As part of the final preparation of the agenda it’s been raised that we should have a beer after the event and put it on the agenda.

Now, when I ran the Management and Infrastructure SIG, there was always a last item of “retire to a pub for a drink or two”. It is a common feature of technical UKOUG SIGs and a great opportunity to chat to the speakers more.

Chat to the speakers. Now I think about it, most of the speakers always make it to the pub after a SIG. If the attendance on the day is 10% speakers, 10% committee and 80% delegates, the make-up in the pub will be 30% speakers, 20% committee and 50% delegates, or similar.

At conferences, the bars in the evening are covered in speakers (all still speaking – loudly and {usually} drunkenly).

So, is it that:

• Speaking leads to elevated drinking
• Drinking makes you more of a sucker for speaking
• Speaking and Drinking have a shared genetic basis
• It’s just me.

My excuse is that all that hot air coming out my mouth makes it dry and it needs a little wetting afterwards…