Today I started work on a bunch of new presentations for up and coming shows. I have had great pleasure in taking *How To Herd Cats And Influence People* around the world, and been enamoured by its success at each event. Thanks to everyone who showed up and joined in on the fun. If you have not seen it, [check it out on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=67E53C5F019C0C21) – as well as a rather odd little video of the [first 30 seconds of the Brazil gig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8slRS8tz70). I will also be delivering it at [Ubuntu Live](https://www.ubuntulive.com/) and [OSCON](https://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2007/) over in Portland, Oregon in July.

So, on to the next presentations. My next main core presentation is called *Growing Ubuntu* and it will be about some of the specific work going into growing the Ubuntu community, how the community has grown, the challenges it has faced, some amusing anecdotes and more. I have just set the ball rolling on this one and will be presenting it for the first time at [LinuxTag](https://www.linuxtag.org/2007/en/home/welcome.html) on Sat 2nd June in Berlin, Germany. I hope to see a bunch of you there.

It is always very exciting creating new talks, and also unnerving. A few years back I primarily spoke in the UK, and therefore my audience was relatively matched in humour, language, knowledge of popular culture and other cultural issues. As anyone who has seen my talks will know, I try to make them amusing, and I have a traditionally British sense of humour. When you take a talk filled with British humour to another country, you could be forgiven for thinking that it may not translate all that well. Luckily, in the vast majority of cases it does, but it is always in the back of my mind when preparing talks to ensure that everyone actually does *get it*.

I also just want to say a huge, gargantuan *thanks!* to the incredible OpenOffice.org team for their recent releases. I find that OpenOffice.org Impress gives me everything I need to create my talks, and it has proved tirelessly reliable and responsive whenever I am delivering them – the one time you don’t want it to screw up is when you are stood in front of 300 people! A lot of people bang on the OpenOffice.org crew for various reasons, but I think they are doing a stunning job. Keep up the great work. And yes, this naturally involves the hero that is [Michael Meeks](https://www.gnome.org/~michael/); a man who deserves a knighthood.