Recently the industry was rocked to its very foundations when yours truly gave the most spectacular interview (technical or otherwise) since "Macho Man" Randy Savage was asked what his chances were of wresting the Intercontinental title back from the Honky Tonk Man.  My thought-provoking discourse led to an equally thought-provoking discussion with Missisauga's local jello wrestling champion, Rob Windsor, who took umbrage to my claim that "70% of the industry is fraudulent", until I had a chat with him and promised to sign his back with the message
"Hello person of interest!
This states we have spoken,
-Justice Gray"

In the event anyone else was looking to strip 3/4s naked and wrestle me into submission as Rob had expressed, I thought I would provide some additional context to my statement.

The self-proclaimed presenters/teachers/thought leaders that I threw into the fraudulent category fall into three groups:

1) Technically fraudulent: People that perform half-baked presentations or demoware that almost exclusively shows cheaply regurgitated Microsoft slide decks without any sort of real-world relevance
2) Motivationally fraudulent: Those who do presentations simply so that they can either jack up their billing rate by $20-$50 an hour or to enjoy cheap/free vacations to cities of their choice without any real thought for making the industry better
3) Complete shysters: People who fit into *both* 1 and 2

When I said that 70% of the presentation circuit is fraudulent (and let's say for sake of argument that I could over by at least 5 percent) I was not referring to people exclusively in category #1; I was referring to people that fit into *any* of the three categories.   I personally believe that there are more people in category 2 than the others, Your opinion on which is highest might differ; however, I think we can all agree that regardless of percentages the presentation side of our industry (much like any industry's presentation side) has some difficulties. 

Rob did make one great point that I wanted to highlight here:
"Can you truly say that there is no value in someone who is presenting good content but doing so for selfish reasons?"

This is a bit of a sticking point to me but I do recognize it as an issue I have personally.  Call me a hand-holding, group-hugging, free-loving whatever but I obviously believe that it would be best if everyone who was involved in presenting, speaking, or teaching did it because they have passion, something to share, and truly want to be of benefit to the community and to help it get better.  I am not naive enough to believe that anyone involved in the industry is 100% altruistic but I do believe that these should be someone's primary motivations and not "I really need to get a Microsoft MVP award so I'd better run around and do some presentations."  For sure, there are those that will still get value out of a presenter will good material who does so out of greed, like that notorious gloryhound Scott Bellware.   I just believe strongly that presenters shouldn't be doing what they do for increasing their RFP bids or for all-expenses paid trips to Vancouver.  Actually, scratch that last one because I would run over your mother* to have an all-expenses paid trip to Vancouver, but I trust my point is made. 

I was surprised to see how many of you thought I had struck a chord with my statements - perhaps the interview wasn't quite as controversial as I originally thought it to be!  Thanks to all of you for the feedback and discussions we've had regarding these subjects over the past week or so.  In the end it is the dialogue and discussion with many of you and the actions from our community that will eventually spring forth from it that are truly important.

* yes, *YOUR* mother

P.S.  I was just kidding Scott!  You don't need to burn your "I tried to give Justice Gray my hotel key at DevTeach" T-shirt