This time last year, I spoke at my first tech meetup. I gave a 30min talk at London Microservice Meetup about my experiences creating full stack teams. Here are my thoughts on how it went and also what you can expect.
Pre-talk jitters
Just to set the scene, this was a talk at the London Microservices Meetup back in Dec 2018. I’ve done quite a lot of internal talks and showcases but this was the first time I’ve spoken to actual strangers! It’s fair to say I had a little bit of nerves and doubts swirling around in my head. Was my talk too technical? Was it not technical enough?
So how did it go?
All things considered, it went pretty well. I did have a feeling of ‘This 30mins feels like forever!’ But that’s pretty normal really. In terms of nerves before speaking, they were definitely there. I don’t think that will ever go away and if i’m honest I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. As long as those nerves don’t stop you from delivering a good presentation, then that’s fine.
So many questions 😭
There were soooo many questions at the end. I’m going to make a I guess that because I was speaking about a people and process issue rather than a technical concept, it was more relatable. A lot of questions is actually a very good thing and to me shows engagement, so I’m going to take that as a win!
Was it more nerve-racking speaking to strangers?
In terms of nerves I think it was just the uncertainty beforehand rather than during the presentation. If i’m honest, I was so focused on making sure I got my presentation right, that a room of 30 people wasn’t much different to a room of 150. There’s a tip a colleague recommended which is focusing on a handful of people in the audience and imagining you’re speaking to them directly, zoning everyone else out. This really does help and I recommend it as a presenting tip.
Could I have done better?
Well for some reason I was standing in a really weird way. I think this was nerves? But hard to tell. Apparently I also say ‘errmmm…’ a lot, so focusing on confident and precise delivery of a message is definitely something I’m going to work on. I feel a lot of this is down to me needing more public speaking experience. I also committed a cardinal tech talk sin, which is that when some asks a question, the speaker should repeat the question before answering it! A friend said that they kinda zoned out at the questions stage, because they couldn’t hear the questions that were being asked.
Would I Do It Again?
For sure, it was a great experience! I learnt a lot and received some great positive and constructive feedback from colleagues and other attendees.
