Speaker writers block

One of my aims for this year is to have done a professional talk at a conference on something I actually work on.

As someone who’s done a few talks at meet ups, one at EMF Camp and various workshops before, it’s the next logical step, but I found an immense amount of pressure on my brain to come up with something good.

I don’t normally write with an aim in mind, and it’s also rare that I’ll put myself forward for anything. I have some really great friends and mentors who tend to tweet me saying “hey you should do this” so even deciding resolutely that I’m doing this is a big step for me.

It’s also been a challenge because I’ve done public speaking before, but not for something I’m paid to do. It’s always been about volunteering, or the new pi project I just wrote, or my final year project, something I’m passionate enough to do it outside of the 9-5 and outside of university. Those are the talks that I’m pretty good at writing and the ones where I feel no pressure to tell anyone that I’m doing it.

However, now that I’ve moved to an environment where I’m happy, it would be a shame to waste the level of enjoyment I get out of my job and the freedom of knowing people around me are supportive of talking publicly.

I’d love to be able to say that I came up with this talk through following a process, but in actual fact I came up with the title idea on my train home at the end of the week (so I guess I’m selling public transport as a means for commuting?).

Anyhow, here’s hoping it gets accepted :D

PS: my new favourite photography website is foolishlego where they take pictures of lego in interesting environments. I hope there’s more reasons to use these photos in future slide decks…