The Ruby Freelancers Show 036 – Speaking at Conferences
Show Notes
Panel
Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript)
Discussion
02:02 - Picking topics
02:02 - Picking topics
Passion Frustration Driven Development: Evan’s WindyCityRails Talk 2012 Listener questions/interest Lynchpin by Seth Godin “Doing what you love and sharing with other people”
07:08 - Speaking at User Groups vs Conferences
Practice runs Keydown
09:46 - Twitter inquiries
10:16 - Topic proposals
Marketing
Abstracts
13:28 - Marketing to conference owners/marketing to the audience
Making memorable talks
16:32 - How speakers are chosen
Individual merit/”Hero Worship” Keynotes by invitation Past experience
20:56 - Preparing for a talk
Practice Keynote / Keydown
25:04 - Writing a book/writing a presentation
Flexibility Stream of consciousness writing Markdown Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds
31:37 - Code in slides
Syntax highlighting Wrapping lines Screen resolution Geekfest
35:18 - Practice, practice, practice
Time your presentation Possibly leave time for Q&A Skipping slides Real-time edits
39:29 - Talking about something/convincing people to try something
Avoid library talks Try to get people to shift perspectives
41:56 - Don’t change topics at the last minute
45:58 - Communication between conference organizers
49:32 - Giving talks, getting leads and referrals, and being recognized as “an expert”
Picks
Picks
Pilot G2 Retractable Gel Ink Color Rolling Ball Pens (Eric) Keydown (Evan) Kensington 33374 Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer (Chuck) QR codes (Chuck)
Transcript
EVAN: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. [sniffs]
EVAN: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. [sniffs]
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CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 36 of the Ruby Freelancer Show! This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis.
ERIC: Hello!
CHUCK: We also have Evan Light.
EVAN: I'm back!
CHUCK: And I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv. And this week we are going to be talking about “Preparing for and Speaking at Conferences”.
EVAN: Conferences.
CHUCK: And I'm kind of inclined to also talk about speaking at users groups.
EVAN: Yeah you should. We should. Actually we should let you do all the talking about users groups.
CHUCK: Why is that?
EVAN: Because I just said ‘you’ first instead of ‘we’.
CHUCK: [laughs] What did I do to you?
EVAN: [chuckles] Right.
CHUCK: So let’s start talking. So Evan, I think you spoken at more conferences than either Eric or I have.
EVAN: Or just spoken more, as in ‘talk a lot’. Yeah, especially I’ve done quite a bit this year too. So I remember in the user voice, the person who suggested this topic started with “How do you pick your topics”, and I think it’s pretty much how do you pick your topics and how do you present and how you get accepted. Picking my topics for me is one of two things -- or actually no, it was really one thing – at the end of it, it’s always, it’s something important to me that I wanna share. That I feel strongly about and I wanna share.
The Ruby Freelancers Show 036 – Speaking at Conferences
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