Preparing a Talk in Pieces

May 25, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

Preparing talk can be really overwhelming. As a rule, I expect to spend an hour preparing for every minute I spend speaking. When a slot gets over 30 minutes… that starts to look like very nearly a full working week. This is an intimidating amount of time to find and clearly being organised and starting […]

Cate’s Career Coaching Process (AKA A Process for Finding Your Next Job)

November 10, 2016.Reading time 14 minutes.

A young woman sits accross from an older woman who has a notebook. Both are wearing old fashioned dress. It looks like a job interview.

I know a number of people who have been laid off recently – the market is on a downturn and this is more common than seems to be being talked about. I’ve spent time helping a few people try and find their next thing lately, and after some iterations I now have a process. 1. What […]

Public Speaking as Performance

October 20, 2014.Reading time 3 minutes.

I’ve written before about how I prepare mentally for a talk. Most recently, I’ve started to view it as a performance and be more and more (as the fall conference season is now underway) I’ve got more comfortable with the things I need to give a good performance. This change is mental, viewing it as a performance […]

My 4 Step Plan For Giving a Talk

June 6, 2014.Reading time 6 minutes.

Prepare. Show up. Start talking. Hide. Prepare This is the easiest bit. I can spend as much time as I want here. The goal: a strong narrative that weaves together my key points (most of the work). Attractive, minimalist slides that illustrate them (much less work). Knowing what I’m going to say, and being able […]

Preparing an Ignite Talk

June 20, 2011.Reading time 14 minutes.

Ignite is an intimidating format. 5 minutes is not a bad length of time, but the auto-advance format is very unforgiving. I’d had that topic in mind as an Ignite talk for a while, but it took me a long time to have the courage to actually present it. And by have the courage to […]

Round 2 @ Google

August 31, 2010.Reading time 5 minutes.

If you follow my Twitter, I may have already given away the ending to this! But as a continuation from my first round, here is my experience for my second (final) on-site with Google two weeks ago. What Did I Do To Prep? Things were a little hectic with the end of Extreme Blue and […]

Interviewing @ Google

July 13, 2010.Reading time 10 minutes.

For those of you who didn’t know (or work it out), this is where I interviewed last week. It went well, I think – at least I feel like I did the best I could and whatever happens that will be helpful. I agreed to an NDA, so I can’t write about the questions that […]

Accidentally in Code

Tag: preparation