If you've never made a pie, you might not know this, but overworking the dough for the crust makes a tough chewy texture rather than the light flaky texture we all prefer. If you overmix the dough when you're making, say, scones, the same thing happens. Hard, dense, chewy scones instead of light, fluffy treats.

Overdoing it isn't just a problem with dough. Overcook a piece of fish and the proteins seize up, making your fish rubbery, not flaky.

Overdo your exercise routine and you end up too sore to go to the gym for days.

Overdo the celebration at a party and you will feel pretty crummy the next day, whether from too much alcohol or too much food!

Which brings me back to overworking, and a problem that is the opposite of what I typically see with speakers.

SXSW is a mega conference/festival for geeks in Austin, Texas, United States. Mega means over 10,000 attendees. I came here to see what’s happening at the geek edge of presenting. To observe the interface between presenting and technology.

But what has been most in my face is that the best presenters I saw care! They don’t care about themselves – they care about their audience, and they care passionately. I’ll talk about each of these three best sessions.

...

So here’s what SXSW reinforced for me. Your style as a presenter doesn’t matter. Whether you’re funny or serious, loud or quiet doesn’t matter. Just care for your audience.

Click through for Olivia's thoughts on sessions by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, Dan Roam, and Gary Vaynerchuck.

At first, we were flattered to see that Fairfax Republican Congressional candidate Keith Fimian used a quote from this blog in the very first radio ad of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D).

But when we looked a little closer, we were less amused.

The ad works on a pig theme and accuses Connolly of going after earmarks at a time when the national debt is rising. Pretty standard political stuff.

But then, the radio narrator tells you this: "Gerry Connolly says, quote, 'I want to be there with all four paws and snout in the trough.' "

Connolly did indeed utter that quote during a July conference call with reporters about Republicans and the stimulus package. We put the quote on this blog.

But was he talking about himself? Nope.

He was making a point about Republican Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who he accused of touting dollars for his district after campaigning against the stimulus plan. Here was the full quote from Connolly:

"You can't have it both ways. You can't on the national stage say this is a bad bill ... but when it comes to my district I want a big chunk of that money. I want to be there with all four paws and snout in the trough."

This is pretty remarkable. I guess I didn't need to read it to know we're in for another long election season.

Watch it. Think about it.

Wouldn't it be great if we could all live with this level of enthusiasm? Wouldn't it be great if we could all make it our mission to save the world for another century? Heck, we could set our sights considerably lower and still be better off.

It's not as crazy as it sounds.

And look what else turned up today: Jeffrey Cufaude's post, Playing Your Way to Refreshed Values.

A rich and thought-provoking video that needs to be seen more and discussed widely and, more important, acted on. There's more than enough here to consider about health care and how we provide it, but the presentation is even more important in the context of the health care reform debate playing out right now. First off, when you think about it, Dishman demolishes in only 17 minutes the notion that US health care systems are the best in the world. We have to be willing to accept that fact and move forward. But we've also got to do something about our political system. Here's a brilliant, concise, and compelling statement of a problem and a presentation of a path forward. I've got to believe that Dishman is only one of many who can offer proposals like this. So why is the national debate about the cost, the size of the deficit, the size of government, and the possibility of socialism. What if we elected representatives and senators who made it their business to review ideas like the one proposed here and find ways to bring it about instead of posturing, namecalling, and protecting special interests? Can you imagine what an exciting country we could live in if we would make the effort to put our focus someplace else?