We Are All Awesome!

Public speaking office hours

2012-06-23T00:00:00-07:00

Public speaking office hours

Interesting in speaking, but don’t know where to start? Come hang out at office hours and brainstorm with other aspiring speakers. Mentors with speaking experience will also be there to answer your questions.

IRC office hours

Weekly office hours will be held over IRC.

Time: Tuesdays 10am Pacific Time, 7pm Central European Time
Channel: #weareallawesome on freenode

Tip: everytimezone.com is a super nice timezone reference.

Mentors

Here are the Twitter handles for the mentors, in case you need to reach them outside office hours.

Chiu-Ki Chan, @chiuki
Tiffany Conroy, @theophani
Lorna Mitchell, @lornajane
Estelle Weyl, @estellevw

New to IRC? Don’t be nervous!

There are many ways to connect to Internet Relay Chat (IRC), just as there are many ways to access the web or your email. The easiest way is to use a web-based IRC client. You don’t have to decide which one now, just:

Follow this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=weareallawesome
Choose a nickname (I recommend your Twitter handle)
Enter the reCAPTCHA.
Connect.

Easy :)

Practical tips for creating great slides

2012-06-22T00:00:00-07:00

Practical tips for creating great slides

Great slides can enhance your arguments, provide a compelling counter-point to your talk, and help create dynamic tension.

Awful slides can take away all of the focus from what you’re saying, bore your audience into a stupor, or provide reading light while the audience checks their emails.

Make it readable

That means big, big fonts, excellent contrast, and using the top half of the screen in preference to the bottom half, since part of the audience might be sitting behind other parts of the audience.

Avoid bullets

No, really. If you need notes, put them on paper cards, or in the presenter view in your presenter software. The audience will read ahead of you, and then will go straight to their email.

Instead, reduce the text on the slide to just the theme of what you are speaking about. If you can get away with it, just use one word. Or even better, an image.

Use code carefully

Code is tricky. It requires context.

A few things to note:

Use as big a font as you can get away with
Go with dark text on light background
Use syntax highlighting
Simplify your sample until only the absolute minimum is left

If you take screenshots, make sure you can make the image large enough without getting fuzzy. If you don’t take screenshots, you’re going to want to look into something that creates syntax highlighted .rtf versions of your code.

The python library pygments is a good choice. You’ll need a decent color schema. That one is based off of github’s syntax highlighting, and was used to create these sample slides.

If you’re emulating terminal output/commands a black background will work, but make sure that the font color is extremely bright.

Resources

Better Presentation Slides (video) A lightning talk by Shane Becker (@veganstraightedge)
Slide Design For Developers A blog post by Zach Holman (@holman)
Improve Your Technical Slides Excellent tips about colors, fonts, and using code.
5 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People 5 minute video by Dr. Weinschenk, including tips on how to use slides.
Add your advice! Make a pull request

Conferences with open calls for proposals (CFPs)

2012-06-13T00:00:00-07:00

Conferences with open calls for proposals (CFPs)

In order to get yourself in front of an audience, you first have to be selected as a speaker, and for that, you need to submit talk proposals. I’ll be making a list of conferences accepting proposals here.

MinneWebCon

MinneWebCon has a CFP open through January 14, 2013. First time speakers and speakers from underrepresented populations in technology are encouraged to apply to this conference, which has a commitment to grassroots knowledge-sharing. Topics covered in previous conferences have ranged from front-end development, mobile development, content strategy, user experience, etc.

Minneapolis, Minnesota | April 15-16, 2013

Lanyrd’s CFP directory

On Lanyrd, conference organisers have the option to post their CFP details, sortable by topic and submission deadline. Visit the Lanyrd CFP directory regularily!

eurucamp

eurucamp | european ruby camp | summer edition - berlin. 17 - 19 august 2012

Our CFP is open. We especially want more proposals from women Rubyists. #waaaCheck @theopani's great article: weareallaweso.me/2012/06/11/an-…
— eurucamp (@eurucamp) June 13, 2012

TwilioCon

Submit your cfp

twiliocon | twilio conference 2012 | san francisco. 16 - 18 october 2012

RubyThere

Also check out rubythere for a list of ruby conferences with open CFPs

BogotaConf

Submit your cfp or email @buritica at juanpablo [at] buritica.org for more info

bogotaconf | Bogota, Colombia. 28,29 September 2012

Independent not-for-profit conference. Travel and accomodation expenses taken care of

JSConf.au

JSConf.au wants you to speak

JSConf.au | JSConf australia 2012 | sydney. 3 august 2012

JavaScript Conference

Submissions accepted via email till 30th June.

javascript conference | dusseldorf. 10 - 11 october 2012

JS.everywhere

Submit your cfp here. Closes on 29th June.

JS.everywhere | san jose. 26 - 27 october 2012

Full Frontal

Apply here. Closing on 7th November.

full frontal | brighton. 9 november 2012

JScamp.Asia

Submit your proposal till 1st September.

jscamp.asia | singapore. 29 - 30 november 2012

CSS Dev Conf

Apply here. Cfp closes on 2nd July.

css dev conf | honolulu. 5th december 2012

Event Handler

Event Handler is geeks organising events for other geeks.

@theophani we welcome applications from anyone, we don't ask for full proposals, we much prefer to have a conversation eventhandler.co.uk/contact
— Event Handler (@eventhandleruk) June 13, 2012

@theophani we like to help get speakers started and have been known to pair up the odd newb with a mentor for advice when we have time
— Event Handler (@eventhandleruk) June 13, 2012

PHPNW 2012

PHPNW 2012 | Manchester. 6 - 7 october 2012

Calling everyone with a story to tell! Submissions due 24th June 2012.

D2W, Virtual Conference

D2W, Virtual Conference | Everywhere! TBD, likely starting first week of september

cf.Objective

cf.Objective | melbourne, australia. 1 - 2 november 2012

Topic submissions are due by Friday July 20.

@theophani cf.Objective (Melbourne Australia) CFS cfobjective.com.au/news/call-for-…. Last year we had one female speaker would like to improve on that.
— Justin Mclean (@JustinMclean) June 14, 2012

MozCon

July 25th-July 27th in Seattle

“We have four 10-minute spots.” Pitch is due Wednesday, June 27th at 5pm PDT.

@theophani MozCon's accepting pitches mz.cm/MCj6C1 We have almost 50/50 gender ratio
— Erica McGillivray (@emcgillivray) June 14, 2012

MagicRuby

CFP closes July 20, 2012.

magicruby | orlando, fl, usa | 5 - 6 october 2012

JSConf EU

JSConf EU | Berlin, October 6th-7th 2012.

The call for presentations is open until July 15th, 2012.

Starting with nothing

2012-06-12T00:00:00-07:00

Starting with nothing

Well, almost nothing

A lot of conferences have calls for proposals (CFPs) months before the conference, but the speakers often present super-fresh stuff. I had a hunch, so I asked the Twitters:

Have you ever submitted a talk proposal on a topic you knew little about, or for a project you hadn't really started, or an incomplete idea?
— Tiffany Conroy (@theophani) June 12, 2012

Were you successful? Were you selected? How was the talk? Please tell me about it! I'm collecting experiences.
— Tiffany Conroy (@theophani) June 12, 2012

And?

What I found out did not surprise me, but it might surprise you:

@theophani all the time.
— Ole Bahlmann (@ole_b) June 12, 2012

@theophani Definitely.
— Menno van Slooten (@mennovanslooten) June 12, 2012

@theophani That's pretty much my job description. :)
— David Herman (@littlecalculist) June 12, 2012

@theophani yep! and it turned out great!
— Martin Brochhaus (@mbrochh) June 12, 2012

@theophani I gave a talk on indie rappers and similarities between their hustle and businesses building open source once. It went well.
— Corey Donohoe (@atmos) June 12, 2012

It’s totally common in academia

@theophani Yes. presenting on it in 3 weeks.
— moink (@moink_tdr) June 12, 2012

@theophani It's not abnormal in academia - great way to get feedback on the direction you're going. Can take guts though.
— moink (@moink_tdr) June 12, 2012

@theophani Yes. Not uncommon in science as abstract submission can be as much as 9 months before the conference.
— Mark James Adams (@mja) June 12, 2012

@theophani A presenter once said “The best model in the abstract is wrong. This is actually the best model.”
— Mark James Adams (@mja) June 12, 2012

… and in our industry as well

@theophani yes. It went really well as I was forced to understand the topic in detail to write the talk. And my approach to learning...
— Christian Heilmann(@codepo8) June 12, 2012

@theophani ...became part of the talk. It is good for the audience to learn with you rather than just hear from you.
— Christian Heilmann(@codepo8) June 12, 2012

@theophani yes. That’s called Talk Driven Development. (-: /cc @janl
— Sean Coates (@coates) June 12, 2012

@coates @theophani on the organiser side we call that conference driven development, if somebody submits a thing we want to see :)
— Jan Lehnardt (@janl) June 12, 2012

@theophani yep, we at @unhosted call it »conference-driven development«. I also do it for personal projects, got 2 coming up.
— Jan-C. Borchardt (@jancborchardt) June 12, 2012

@theophani @janl not on a topic I didn't know about, but nearly always a incomplete or non-started idea.
— Remy Sharp (@rem) June 12, 2012

And it’s highly recommended

@theophani yup, and this works awesomely for pushing yourself out of the comfort zone - did it several times
— Douglas Campos (@qmx) June 12, 2012

@theophani of course! Best impetus to learn it, finish it, flesh it out.
— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) June 12, 2012

… though not by everyone

@theophani I gave a talk about Extreme Programming in '99 in a big conference after reading just the books. Was well received. Never again.
— Lalo Martins (@lalomartins) June 12, 2012

@theophani intro to the topic, in a general software conference. Generated interest, which was the goal; but I hate *watching* those
— Lalo Martins (@lalomartins) June 12, 2012

@theophani yes, i did and i succeded. But only on usergroups :-)
— Fabian Blechschmidt (@Fabian_ikono) June 12, 2012

@theophani I thought about, but I have not enough time to read into the topic and made a presentation. Time is missing all the time :-(
— Fabian Blechschmidt (@Fabian_ikono) June 12, 2012

It’s a great way to motivate yourself

@theophani Submitting talk proposals for incomplete projects is my primary method of setting deadlines ;)
— Jan Schmidt (@thaytan) June 12, 2012

@theophani it’s like forcing deadlines for yourself.
— Jan-C. Borchardt (@jancborchardt) June 12, 2012

@theophani Yeah a couple of times. Talks on Primer and Sinewav.es were proposed before I'd really started the project.
— James Coglan (@jcoglan) June 12, 2012

@theophani It's a tremendous motivating force.
— James Coglan (@jcoglan) June 12, 2012

It’s a great way to learn

@theophani @rmurphey absolutely. Nothing gets you learning like the looming threat of a deadline.
— Andy Matthews (@commadelimited) June 12, 2012

@theophani @rmurphey Constantly. For me, it's an opportunity to explore ideas and start a discussion. Always had success with it.
— Jen Myers (@antiheroine) June 12, 2012

But warning: It can be a lot of work

@theophani I totally did it here: conferenciarails.org/speakers.html#… I learnt a lot, had lots of fun and I think the audience enjoyed too. Very positive!
— Sergio (@porras) June 12, 2012

@theophani but it was a massive, ever more than expected, amount of work, much much more than any other talk I've done. Schedule carefuly!
— Sergio (@porras) June 12, 2012

@porras Would you do it again? Would you recommend that experience to others?
— Tiffany Conroy (@theophani) June 12, 2012

@theophani it was one of the best experiences I've ever had as a developer. of course I'd do it again. the only thing I would change ...
— Sergio (@porras) June 12, 2012

@theophani … is making sure I have enough time to prepare it right and actually have some sleep in the previous week
— Sergio (@porras) June 12, 2012

Learning from rejection

These are the success (mostly) stories of people whose talk proposals got accepted. But what if your proposal is rejected? That might suck, right? But even

@theophani have a lot of thoughts/experience with this.will write up later when i have time, and so curious to hear what you collect!
— kathryn rotondo (@krotondo) June 12, 2012

kathryn (@krotondo) made good on her promise to write up her thoughts and experiences: lessons from conference rejections. If you are considering submitting talk proposals, and especially if you are worried about rejection, you should read her post. My favourite line is this one:

my advice: let conference organizers decide – don’t let your intimidation prevent you from sending out a proposal.

Amen.

Practical tips for becoming a great speaker

2012-06-12T00:00:00-07:00

Practical tips for becoming a great speaker

These tips are for both preparing your talk, and being a good presenter of the content. These tips are just a start. I plan to gather more resources, examples of great talks, and will expand and change this post as I get feedback.

Have a clear reason for giving the talk

Technical talks range from pure opinion to strictly instructional. Whatever the flavour, identify for yourself why you are motivated to give this talk, and use that motivation to guide you. As you prepare, occasionally assess whether your talk is still focused on its goal.

Your talk should also motivate your audience about the topic. If the only thing they take away from your talk is a drive to explore more on the topic themselves, you have succeeded.

State your thesis

A talk is not a mystery novel: be clear and state the point you want people to understand. State it at the beginning and also at the end. It might even be the title of your talk as well.

Know your ideas, not the exact words

You must practice your talk in order to be confident on stage. You also want to be able to talk to your audience, not read from notes.

The way to avoid reading from your notes, and to sound casual, is to remember a series of core ideas you want to express, instead of exact words. When you are rehearsing (and timing) your talk, if you must refer to your notes, refer only to your list of ideas.

Structure: have it

In storytelling, there are different kinds of narratives, but the most engaging and satisfying* ones have:

a beginning that introduces the motive (motivation, purpose, thesis)
a middle where the motive is advanced (explained, justified, challenged)
a clear ending (summary, conclusion, outcome)

If the middle of your talk has a series of distinct sections, let your audience know what they are in advance, and remind your audience where you are in your “agenda” as you go. You can do this verbally (e.g. “I explained A and B, and now I will explain C”) or just visually with your slides, or both.

* Yes there are stories that break this structure, but they are rare, and while the goods ones are exceptional, the bad ones are dismal.

For a variation on this theme, check the TEDx talk “the secret structure of great talks” by Nancy Duarte.

Introduce yourself

The point of your personal introduction is not to give your life story (snore), but to give you credibility. If your talk is mostly opinion, then justify why your opinion is valuable. For example, “As a beginner, my experience illustrates the kinds of frustration other beginners have” or “In my 5 years experience, I’ve seen this pattern again and again.” Such statements add credibility and can thus engage your audience.

Pacing

Give time for people to think. I used to be afraid that I had to rush through everything I was saying, or else I might appear confused or lost. When you are giving a talk, you notice those silences, but your audience, meanwhile, is still digesting what you just said. Presenting is not radio. You won’t look stupid or forgetful if you pause to refer your notes between ideas. Take a breath, or, if you need an excuse to pause, take a sip of water.

Is your talk beginner, intermediate or advanced?

If you are giving an instructional talk, then state what level of instruction you will give and what the listener can expect to know at the end. For example “In this introductory talk, you will get a taste for when this library is useful, and learn when you shouldn’t use it” or ”I’ll give detailed instructions for two different ways to accomplish this result.”

Tell your audience only what they don’t know

Identify what you assume the audience knows and doesn’t know. This is what people mean when they say “know your audience.” In your talk, state your assumptions. Here is a template you can use: “You have done X before, and you know Y, but I think you did not know Z”.

I lifted this template almost word for word from Lea Verou’s CSS3 Secrets: 10 things you might not know about CSS3 talk. At the beginning, but also throughout, she tells her audience what she expects of them, and what she will tell them.

This technique gives context, shows you know the audience is knowledgeable, and makes it clear what your goals are. Win, win, win.

Stay on topic

If you spend too much time talking about a side topic, your audience may stop paying attention, or get confused.

If you find yourself with more than one slide about a side topic, then guess what? You just found another topic you could give a talk about. Cut all but the essentials of the side topic from your talk. You may even only be left with a remark, not even a slide. Set those notes and slides aside, and work on that talk another time.

If understanding the side topic is a prerequisite and you assume your audience does not know it, then explain the absolute minimum required to understand your talk only.

Learn from others

As you watch anyone give a talk, pay attention to what you liked, and didn’t like. When working and re-working your own talk, go back to those thoughts: Can you use any of the effective techniques in your talk? Are you making any of the same mistakes?

Or learn from this person, Caroline Drucker (@bougie), from her five minute talk about how to give a great talk:

More advice

Other people have shared their advice from their personal experience too. Be inspired!

Technical Women–it’s conference submission season! by Lynn Langit, @lynnlangit
Talk Checklist by Jörn Zaefferer, @bassistance
Chiu-Ki Chan’s blog by Chiu-Ki Chan, @chiuki
What They Don’t Tell You About Public Speaking by Zach Holman @holman
5 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People 5 minute video by Dr. Weinschenk
Add your advice! Make a pull request

Excuses, Excuses!

2012-06-11T00:00:00-07:00

Excuses, Excuses!

You can only win a speaker slot if you enter the competition. If you were previously waiting for an invitation to speak: THIS IS YOUR INVITATION. SUBMIT YOUR TALK PROPOSAL TODAY.

Here is why you won’t, and why your reasons aren’t valid:

1. You think “I have nothing to talk about”

We all benefit from hearing different points of view. Your point of view and your way of expressing it is unique. You may think someone else has already expressed every idea or opinion you have, but no one but you possesses your particular combination of thoughts and ways of expressing them.

Talk about anything you know to any audience that doesn’t already know it. If you are afraid to talk about a programming topic to an audience of programmers, then talk about programming to designers, or talk about design to programmers.

In this short talk, Chiu-Ki Chan (@chiuki) shares her secret formula for finding ideas using only your brain and a notepad:

You can also talk about something brand new for you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about the topic yet, either, since I promise you will know a lot about it when you give the talk. Giving a talk is a fantastic way to learn. Give the talk you want to hear.

2. You think “I’d be a terrible speaker”

You need only two things to be a great speaker: practice and confidence. The fastest route to confidence is practice, so really you just need practice. Practice means: rehearsing your talk a few times before giving it, but also giving more talks to get better at preparing them.

I started small: I gave a lightning talk which was just a book review at one of my local meet-ups. Then I gave an introductory how-to on making bookmarklets to the same group. The trick to getting started was that I chose a topic and an audience I felt really comfortable with, and progressed from there.

3. You think “I’m afraid of public speaking”

Why, because you are afraid of looking stupid in front of a crowd? PROTIP: Being afraid of looking stupid is actually a fantastic motivator for being well-prepared. Most of us are intimidated by public speaking. I’m afraid every single time, but then, because I’m prepared and I’ve practiced, everything goes well and I end up feeling great.

4. You think “I’m not nearly as nerdy and intense as some of those guys I’ve seen give talks”

GOOD. Those guys don’t represent programmers in general, and you should not compare yourself with them. Be you. That’s the whole point of having diverse people participate; for diverse viewpoints.

5. You think “But I’m not ready yet!”

All you need to prepare and submit is a talk proposal. Spend an evening sketching out an idea, and write up a paragraph describing the theme. If your proposal is accepted, then you can get to work on getting the talk prepared. If you are serious about getting involved as a speaker in general, then propose a short talk at your next local meet-up, and submit talk proposals at a few conferences.

Convinced?

If you need help brainstorming ideas, writing a talk proposal, making your slides, finding speaking engagements, or anything else please contact us.

An alternative to affirmative action

2012-06-11T00:00:00-07:00

An alternative to affirmative action

Affirmative action is bootstrapping. We’d love to eventually have an organic, natural balance of gender represenation in all roles, but in the meantime, we may need to force the balance. That’s affirmative action.

If you run a conference, you could choose to bootstrap your selection process in this way. However, explicitly setting aside speaker spots for women is bound to start a heated debate about whether affirmative action is fair, and whether it achieves its goals.

Whether you feel affirmative action is unfair or not, the fact is some people percieve it as unfair. There is an alternative: to actively encourage women to submit conference proposals, especially to conferences that have blind selection processes.

As an industry, we could insist on taking affirmative action. Or we could jump over the topic of affirmative action entirely by instead actively and aggressively encouraging women to submit talk proposals to conferences.

This brilliant, so-obvious-why-has-no-one-else-done-it idea was recently executed and blogged about by Courtney Stanton:

The easiest way I saw for getting more women on stage at the actual event was to get as many women to submit speaking proposals as possible.

So our call to action is now clear: recruit as many women as possible to submit talk proposals to as many tech conferences as possible.