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Discussion on: Practicing (And Nailing) My First Conference Talk

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seangwright profile image
Sean G. Wright

This post should be given to first time speakers as part of their preparation! You are a very talented writer and communicator.

I'm gonna try to watch your talk as soon as its live on Pluralsight,

Congrats Matt!

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integerman profile image
Matt Eland

Me too - I could learn a lot by watching my mannerisms, etc. I definitely need to get better at handling hiccups, but that should come in time.

There aren't as many direct takeaways on this article, but the thing as a whole could be looked at "How to succeed if you're introverted and not all that comfortable talking in a crowd".

It should be said, however, that I've been building up to this - talking internally at my organization, user group talks, etc. A certain baseline level of comfort talking and leading has been growing in recent years and the added practice and polish from this process allowed that to shine.

It also should be said that this was a massive amount of work on my end, starting the day I got the acceptance notification.

Incidentally, I submitted the talk to another conference last night. I'd need to trim it down a little, and I'd revisit the slides where there were a few contrast issues etc., but I might be giving the talk again in a few months.

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seangwright profile image
Sean G. Wright

I've never presented something more than once - seems like a great way to do less work with more effect!

It's funny that with all the talks/presentations I've done, some require tons of work and don't seem to have an equal impact, and others (I subjectively feel like) I slap together and some of those have a much larger impact.

However, with all of them I feel that I've learned something valuable, whether that was something external and technical or internal and social about myself.

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integerman profile image
Matt Eland

I'll be honest - I love making new talks. Repeating the same talk isn't as exciting for me. I like the research requirements of discovering something new and owning it in a way that I can take it apart, restructure it, and present it for best impact.