As a long time reader of The Eloquent Woman blog, of course I bought Denise’s book, The Eloquent Woman’s Guide to Moderating Panels (Amazon) almost as soon as it came out, and only waited a couple of weeks to read it! I’m not a fan of panels because so often they are bad, so it’s great to […]
When I decided it was time to leave my corporate tech job, I made an 18 month plan. One key item on it: speaking at conferences. I prepped one talk (building it off some of my more popular blog posts), and submitted it to a number of places, hoping it would be accepted at one […]
I read a lot about how important it is to get more women speakers (and PoC!) at tech conferences, and I agree it’s important. But one of the things I’ve found as a speaker, who is also a woman, is that I get invitations to fill what I refer to as “the woman speaker slot”. […]
How to Deliver a TED Talk (Amazon) is packed with some solid and fairly standard public speaking advice, which was good, but the most interesting parts for me were the deconstructions of TED talks. When prepping talks personally, I think a lot about my narrative, and taking notes during other peoples helps me see theirs better, […]
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 […]
This year, I prepped one talk. Next year, I feel more confident and plan to prep 3 (working titles: Mobile is a Systems Problem, The Myth of The Intersection of Energy, Creativity, and Time, and a Series of Unfortunate Statistics). This year’s talk – Distractedly Intimate – has been given in timeframes ranging from 20 […]
I read Gravitas (Amazon) really slowly, and part of the reason for that was that I wanted to take the time and process each chapter. The “gravitas” eqation of Knowledge + purpose + passion (- anxiety) = Gravitas is what I think of as “poise”, and as I’ve mentioned before is my goal as a […]
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 […]
I stopped public speaking at the end of 2011. And, 6 months into 2012 I finally wrote about why. I wrote about being more intentional with my time, wanting to focus on more technical talks, and – in the vaguest terms, not really calling it what it was – about being harassed on Twitter as […]
I get very nervous presenting, although it’s something I do relatively often. This is not out of enthusiasm for getting up on stage, but rather because I find myself in the position of being the least unwilling engineer. After my last presentation I was told that I didn’t need to be nervous, because I was […]