Speakers, stop doing these 5 things!
After a decade of Call For Counselors, a few patterns consistently emerge every year. Here are my top 5 and what you should do to level up your game.
Stop these 5 things, and stand out above all the noise.
#1 - Hey Clark, what are people looking to learn?
There is another version of this question; Hey Clark, what do you want me to speak on? I understand why this comes about, but we’re not interested in telling you what to talk about as much as we are about you talking about the thing you’re so passionate about you’re losing sleep over it. THAT Conferenceis a polyglot conference; that means anything related to software development. THATs a lot of stuff.
Rather than ask us what the geeks want, ask the geeks directly. Jump in the slack #sessions channel, drop your ideas, and ask folks to to give you some feedback. These are the folks who would be considering attending your session. You might be surprised at how your ideas evolve.
#2 - How to get started with buzzword.
Stop hiding your awesome behind the buzzwords. It’s easy to accidently add a dash of buzzword salad to your abstract loosing track of the core value of why geeks should attend. Buzzwords don’t inheritantly give you credibility and your abstract should detail the value of why someone should consider attending.
#3 - I can’t talk about buzzword because I’m not as good as that other geek.
It doesn’t matter who’s claiming they’re the expert in the said buzzword. The reality is we all have unique experiences that can help others. No two products are built the same. One way to get over your imposter syndrom is to seek feedback and mentorship from others.
#4 - The session is either too limited or way too much.
60 minutes is all you have. If your session includes 10 bullet points of topics you want to cover, ask yourself just how much time can you dedicate to each of those items. Are you doing it the justice it deserves? 60 minutes goes fast, and you should use that time to dive in deeper into fewer items.
#5 - Loosing track of your core value.
The tech is the topic that joins everyone together but you’re the star. Don’t loose sight of the value you bring to the community. Your experiences are just as important as the tech itself, maybe even more important. Make sure you’re bringing more than what someone could just find online themselves.
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