On speaking, emotions, and including others

This past weekend I had the great opportunity to give a talk at JSConf Last Call. Given this was my first serious public speaking opportunity, it was both extremely exciting and terrifying to debut at a conference that many people rightfully hold in such high regard. And I’ll note that I was on the B-track, so I wasn’t invited to speak, but made it in the first-come-first-serve queue. Given the calibre of the company I shared in other B-track speakers, I am very proud to have been part of it.

This post isn’t really about the talk content itself, but my feelings and learnings about the experience before, during and after.

My talk, for some brief background, was on how you can improve relations between designers and developers. As a designer that loves development, this is a very important topic for me. I won’t go into the contents of the talk, as that is not what this post is about — if you want to listen to it, you can do so on YouTube. Had I known it was being recorded, I would have been even more of a nervous wreck than I was – so it was good that I didn’t! :)

Pre-Talk

I never hit the level of nervousness I was expecting to hit leading up to the talk. I think the fact I truly believed in the topic helped immensely. Also, my awesome teammates at bitHound and my wife were great for providing feedback and reassurances.

Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to help with my nerves on the day of the talk was the day started with Kevin Old (@kevinold) presenting a talk on Imposter Syndrome. Kevin’s perspective helped give me a boost of confidence, which was still overshadowed by my own imposter syndrome. But still… every bit counts.

Minutes ahead of my talk it became clear I wasn’t going to be drawing a huge crowd. Which, sure, I wish I was able to share my talk with more people, but I really really appreciated the small crowd for two main reasons. The first reason, I knew I would be much more comfortable with a small crowd. And two, given that the A-track deservedly drew a much larger crowd because it was a great topic in its on right (who doesn’t love IoT?), it meant that maybe the people listening to my talk must have really wanted to be there. That… that’s just amazing.

Mid-Talk

During my talk I felt like I had hit a decent stride. I don’t think I was rambling (though I can’t confirm for myself as I’m not going to be able to listen to that YouTube clip for some time), and felt confident in the content. It didn’t stop me from sweating and being nervous about it all. I made a couple of gaffs that I had tried to avoid: I used “you guys” to address the audience. I apologize for that as it is not an inclusionary way to address a group of people. I also made references in my talk with regards to “prettying it up” and “adding lipstick” in reference to some people’s ideas of what design is — which again — not cool. Given that my talk had a lot to do with including others, and empathy, I really felt the language I used could have been better. I’ll be sure to work on that in future.

Luckily though, those mistakes didn’t derail me completely, but they did stick out in my head a lot. But there were also good things that I experienced during the talk. I had garnered some laughs in a self-deprecating way (those are the best kind I think) with a screenshot of my own erroneous attempts at development. It was tweetable content too (w00t!). That was really cool. It’s amazing how laughter can connect people.

What I really noticed and enjoyed the most were the few head nods I saw in the crowd in the few moments I remembered to make human being eye contact. That connection was great. And I realize that it was not validation of me being a speaker, but the fact that there other people that share similar feelings about something I had worked so hard to share.

Post-Talk

This was both great and disappointing. And the disappointing part was entirely my fault.

I’ll start with the great part. Before I even had a chance to curl back into a cocoon of obscurity, one of the attendees came to talk to me about how much they enjoyed my presentation and could relate so many things in it to his own work environment. He even mentioned he wished I could come share the talk with his team! That was amazing. I figured, hey, I reached one person – and it was completely worth it! And — now my talk is over. I can curl back up in my cocoon of obscurity! Hashtag winning, right?

Well actually, this is where I hit the disappointing part. I didn’t even try to strike up conversation with other members of the audience. And I don’t mean just right after the talk — which would have been the best and easiest way to do it, but throughout the rest of the conference too. And for that, I’m mostly disappointed in myself.

You see, JS Conf has a policy of having no question period after a talk. It is meant to encourage personal interaction and dialogue between the attendees. Unfortunately — for attendees like myself — who have a hard time just striking up conversation, that followup might not happen. And this isn’t at all intended to lessen the value of the comments and discussion I did have as a result — they were great, interesting and valuable. But I wish I had done more. I wish that given my limited audience, that I had taken the opportunity to learn more from other people that were there. But — I reverted to old and familiar ways.

And that’s when I realized I may have just become what I dreaded most. In reverting back to my familiar ways, did I make myself completely unapproachable? Unaccessible? Aloof? But then typing this then makes me think – am I just full of myself? Maybe no one else wanted to talk to me, anyways? But what if they did? Maybe others are just as nervous as hell as I am, and in seeing that I gave a talk thought that I was a confident person that would strike up conversation if I wanted to.

Doing a talk might give the illusion that speakers are in a position of power. Confidence is a very scary trait in others to people who feel they lack it. I know because I’m one of those people.

As a result of all this, I will regret those opportunities missed, and try my hardest to avoid that in the future. I learned a lot more than I thought I would about people and myself at JSConf Last Call. I find these types of events don’t always surface their impacts on people in obvious ways. I’ll be thinking hard about these lessons learned and will try harder to be more confident in sharing my ideas, and helping to include others by asking others to share their ideas as well.

If you were at my talk, (or weren’t — whatever!) and happen to see this post. and you have some questions, observations, or experiences you want to share, please do.