I got to read an early draft of Demystifying Public Speaking (Amazon) and it was exciting to revisit it and read the published version. It’s the perfect, to the point, read for those who are wondering how to get started public speaking, or facing their first talk unsure of how to prepare. The chapter on feedback is […]
When I set my speaking goals for 2016, I set a limit of 6 talks. As someone asked, “did you just give them all in a two week period?” – actually I decided that 1 meet-up, 3 workshops, and MC-ing did not count (this is the thing about unclear goals). When I set my goals I […]
I was on Less Than or Equal in March, something that I’ve actually been engaging in self-promotion of, because I think it’s one of the better things I’ve done. Largely because Aleen (the host) asked such thoughtful questions, and made me feel so comfortable speaking to her. I’ve also discovered that I just love podcasts […]
(in no particular order) This seems like a good idea. These are points I should cover. Why the hell am I doing this. I should not be talking about this topic (reasons: assorted). Ooh break through! This is the angle I’ll take! Excited! It’s happening so just write the damn thing. I’ve given so many […]
I was lucky enough to get a preview copy of Present! A Techie’s Guide to Public Speaking. It was a helpful collection of tips for preparing and giving presentations, including the why and how of psyching yourself up to do it! As someone who reads a lot about giving good presentations (hello have you seen the newsletter) […]
As part of the Technically Speaking Anniversary last week I did two mentoring calls. Both of them focused on writing abstracts. This is cool, because one of the things I discovered when Chiu-Ki and I ran our workshop is that Abstract Writing is something of a speciality for me and I actually quite enjoy writing […]
A year ago Chiu-Ki and I met up in Copenhagen and decided to start a newsletter about public speaking in tech. Technically Speaking has been going ever since. We’ve learned a bunch about speaking (of course!) which we’ve shared with our readers. But also about running a sustainable project, and (gasp!) self promotion. A year in, […]
Speaker panels can be a bit overwhelming, because there end up being so many people on stage, which makes them a special problem. We did an interesting thing for the speaker panel at 360iDev which I think is worth talking about. Any question was supposed to be taken by only one panelist, and then there […]
When I decided to leave my corporate tech job, public speaking was part of The Plan. However I didn’t really know where to begin. I built a talk from some of my more popular blogposts and started submitting it to CfPs I happened across. Luckily, I met up with Chiu-Ki on a trip to the […]
I kept meaning to buy Confessions of a Public Speaker (Amazon) because I read his blog, and I finally got around to it. Part of the reason I was slow to buy it was because I think I ingest all the speaking advice I can already. Turns out, this book is mostly not advice – […]