Next Tuesday, Oct 20, I will be presenting as part of the "Storytellers" session of the Business track at the Create WV conference because of my work with the whyhuntington.com website. I'm pretty out of practice with my public speaking and the time frame for my presentation is pretty limited (10-15min) so I want to put my outline up for others to review and provide some feedback. I don't know if I will actually get to touch on everything in the outline but all of the elements are somewhat important to me effectively communicating my story. Here's the outline. Please be as harsh as you want; just keep it constructive. Thanks

1. Introduction
   1. Who I am
   2. How Did I get Here?
   3. Why did I stay here?
   4. Why am I speaking today?
2. Why Huntington.com
   1. Why did I create it?
      1. why charleston
      2. lawrence fine
   2. What are my goals for it?
      1. locals
         1. show them how great their hometown is
         2. keep them informed of all that is going on
         3. help get them involved in making the place better
         4. show folks how many great creative people are here
      2. outsiders
         1. counter some of the bad national publicity
         2. high search result for huntington wv
            1. Where did that start?
            2. Where is it now?
         3. show people this is a place they might want to live/work in
      3. Collaboration
         1. I can't do it all alone - I have a job
         2. I don't know everything there is to know
         3. Even when I do know, I'm not always the expert
         4. IT'S HARD to get others to invest themselves in the idea
      4. Aggregated Calendar - http://elmcity.cloudapp.net/services/whyhuntington/html
         1. what is it?
         2. how does it work?
            1. other people publish their own calendars online
               1. google
               2. microsoft live
               3. outlook tie-in
            2. pull it all in programmatically
               1. working with Jon Udell of Keane NH; another small town
         3. Value?
            1. Calendar is always updated with accurate info
            2. Residents know what is going on before it happens
               1. no more, "nothing happens here"
               2. no more, "I always hear about something a week after it happens"
            3. metric of events:popluation ratio
               1. one way to show quality of life here
                  1. possibly show comparisons to other towns in project http://elmcity.cloudapp.net/
                  2. show "tags" and give an idea of temporal scope (90 days) http://elmcity.cloudapp.net/services/whyhuntington/tags_html
      5. Why WV Network
         1. Why Huntington and Why Charleston
         2. Benefits?
            1. Shows great features of the entire state
            2. Helps to counter streotypes
            3. Help people who are thinking of moving here see why they should
            4. Help businesses see the value in opening here (it's the people)
         3. Obstacles?
            1. Getting someone to start it
            2. Overcoming the post-honeymoon slump
               1. how do you stay motivated to keep posting?
            3. Expense?
               1. fairly inexpensive to operate
               2. potentially sizable cost in effort to get a site started
                  1. domain name
                  2. site configuration and installation
                  3. training time
   3. Technology Used
      1. Wordpress Blogging Engine

#General