this is portable

Flashbelt is probably one of the hardest conference experiences to sum up beyond the simple description of “absolutely awesome”. This was my second year attending and my first year as a speaker which made it even more fun the second time around.

Thanks to everyone who attended my session! I got some great feedback from you guys and I loved getting the chance to chat with everyone afterward too. If you missed the tweets, I have my slides and more posted here.

My session was on the first day so I was still able to catch a lot of sessions. Every session I saw was great which makes it so hard to pick favourites. I was particularly psyched to catch Caroline Oh, Jennifer Shiman, Seb Lee-Delisle and all three of the Je/ar(ed) keynotes. (That would be Jared Ficklin, Jared Tarbell and Jer Throp) My old pal Josh, and new pal Charlie, both did a kick-ass job at their Flashbelt debuts, too.

There were some inspiring themes that emerged organically throughout everyone’s talks. Specifically, advice to allow time and space for discovery; to act on your ideas; and that if something you want doesn’t exist – get out there and make it. Oh, and also cornstarch.

One quote that really stood out was from Filip Visnjic‘s session (and I’m totally paraphrasing here): “If you already know what it’s going to end up like, you shouldn’t do it”. (This was advice he gives to his students when they come to him with a project idea and can already describe exactly the outcome they want from it. )

I want to pick a quote from Jer’s talk that capped off the whole conference, but it would have to be the whole thing. He did an amazing job telling his story and subtly touching on some very relevant issues at the same time. An absolutely perfect ending to the event.

Hey look – “Free Hugs”! what a friendly conference, right?

There is so much to Flashbelt beyond the sessions, though. It’s the perfect venue to catch up with old friends and make a whole lot of new ones. Between biking along with Keith’s run and following Stephen‘s lead, I managed to to counter act all the drinking and see some of Minneapolis. I discovered that my Bocce skills have greatly diminished since last year and apparently “Val” sounds enough like “Ralph” to really confuse people. Who knew? But seriously, I need some bocce practice…

I had a great time sewing and talking shop with everyone at the maker/circuit bending/arduino/soft-circuits meet up. Thanks to Kristin and Dave for making that happen. I got to show off my dog hoodie project a bit and do a little sewing.

The last night was definitely the highlight. Starting with a leisurely walk from the hotel with a stop at the Guthrie Theatre and probably the best pizza I’ve had outside of Italy thanks to Bruno. A quick stop at the qrcode art show and then off to Nye’s. It’s pretty hard not to have an awesome time surrounded by so much glittery vinyl and listening to your friends sing along with the crazy piano karaoke guy. The late night walk back through the park to the hotel was the perfect way to end the night.

To sum it all up, Flashbelt was absolutely great again this year. Dave and his crew did an amazing job putting it together and making things run smoothly. You’d almost think it was effortless, but I know they put in whole lot of work to make it happen.

Over the last year or so the topic of conference speaker selection and questions surrounding getting new speakers seem to have come up a lot. As someone who organizes two conferences I tend to have a lot of opinions on these topics. While I could probably go on about these things forever, I thought I’d start by offering some advice for folks who want to start speaking.

One point I want to clear up at the start: Every event & conference organizer I know does make a conscious effort to find new speakers. They follow the community online; they attend conferences of other industries; they ask around and stay involved in the industry. They are looking and they are happy to give someone new a chance.

I hear from a lot of people they want to to be a speaker but they just don’t know where to start. If you break it down there are two or three things that organizers look for in new speakers: a relevant topic, speaking experience, and community involvement.

Gain Speaking Experience

The easiest way to gain speaking experience is to speak at a local user group. Trust me, this is a win-win. There’s a lot of user groups out there — Adobe affiliated groups, Refresh groups and more — and they’re pretty much always looking for speakers.

Don’t forget to ask for feedback when you’re done, both from the audience and the group organizers. Find out what they thought you did best, what they thought you missed. Feedback is valuable.

Submit Your Topic

Once you’ve got some experience under your belt, contact the organizers of the event(s) you want to speak at, let them know you’re interested. You don’t have to have a talk already 100% prepared. A well written title and description are enough to get you started.

Get Involved in the Community

Getting out and getting involved in the community is a huge help. There are so many benefits to being involved. You’ll find out so much more from attending user groups and conferences than you can just reading blogs and such online.

Being involved can help you pick a topic or gauge potential interest in one you have in mind. It’s also a great way to get to find out about speaking opportunities you would otherwise have never known about.

The word “networking” has some negative connotations, but it’s so easy to do in our community. There are so many wonderful folks, it’s really more like making new friends.

There You Have It…

So there you have it, a short list of things you can do to get started as a speaker. Hopefully that helps some of you that weren’t sure where to start. This is just one way that I’ve seen work for people, there’s plenty of others, too.

If there’s something specific to speaking you want to hear about, let me know. I’m always happy to share.