First steps into conference speaking
I’ve been thinking about next year’s New Year’s Resolutions again. One which I’m going to repeat from this year was to blog more (inspired by Lorna’s post about blogging more back in January), but also a new one I want to achieve is to speak at a conference.
I’ve presented papers at a couple of non-web related conferences a number of years ago, but nothing in the web field, and I’m unsure as to the correct approach to take with this. My main reason for wanting to speak is that I want to be able to share knowledge I’ve learnt in the hope that this may be of interest to at least one person. I’m also passionate about the technology I use in day-to-day development and would most probably like to include this. My main concern however is “would it be interesting enough?”, which I’m inclined to feel is a catch-22 situation – I won’t know until presenting it, but then I won’t get a chance to present it unless I submit.
Calls for papers are continuously springing up, and I’m wondering about the best approach here to get my foot in the door so to speak. Is it a case of writing up something that I feel is interesting and would benefit others, and just taking the leap? Finding local Uncons/user groups and trying the material out there?
I’d be interested to hear any tips and pointers :-)
My advice: begin.
Depending where you are based, find a user group, bar camp or unconference to take your first talk to, and see how it goes. I’ve written a lot about how to speak and prepare for those things, but perhaps the best place to start is with a podcast I created exactly to answer this question: http://www.lornajane.net/posts/2010/podcast-how-and-why-to-become-a-speaker
Good luck :)
Thanks Lorna, great podcast too :-) I’m going to attempt to knock out a few abstracts in the next few days then and see what comes up – nothing to lose! Your “4 to 8 talks” submissions part surprised me – had always assumed that speakers just submitted a single talk. Eye opening! :-)