Summary: Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 02:02 - Picking topics Passion Frustration Driven Development: Evan’s WindyCityRails Talk 2012 Listener questions/interest Lynchpin by Seth Godin “Doing what you love and sharing with other people” 07:08 - Speaking at User Groups vs Conferences Practice runs Keydown 09:46 - Twitter inquiries 10:16 - Topic proposals Marketing Abstracts 13:28 - Marketing to conference owners/marketing to the audience Making memorable talks 16:32 - How speakers are chosen Individual merit/”Hero Worship” Keynotes by invitation Past experience 20:56 - Preparing for a talk Practice Keynote / Keydown 25:04 - Writing a book/writing a presentation Flexibility Stream of consciousness writing Markdown Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds 31:37 - Code in slides Syntax highlighting Wrapping lines Screen resolution Geekfest 35:18 - Practice, practice, practice Time your presentation Possibly leave time for Q&A Skipping slides Real-time edits 39:29 - Talking about something/convincing people to try something Avoid library talks Try to get people to shift perspectives 41:56 - Don’t change topics at the last minute 45:58 - Communication between conference organizers 49:32 - Giving talks, getting leads and referrals, and being recognized as “an expert” Picks Pilot G2 Retractable Gel Ink Color Rolling Ball Pens (Eric) Keydown (Evan) Kensington 33374 Wireless Presenter with Laser Pointer (Chuck) QR codes (Chuck) Transcript EVAN: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. [sniffs] [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing: Developer Edition: Practical Steps to Work Less, Travel and Make More Money”. It includes interviews and case studies with successful freelancers, who have made a killing by expanding their consultancy, develop passive income through informational products, build successful SaaS products, and become rockstar consultants making a minimum of $200/hour. There are all kinds of practical steps on getting started and if you sign up now, you’ll get 50% off when it’s released. You can find it at nextlevelfreelancing.com] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 36 of the Ruby Freelancer Show! This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis. ERIC: Hello! CHUCK: We also have Evan Light. EVAN: I'm back! CHUCK: And I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv. And this week we are going to be talking about “Preparing for and Speaking at Conferences”. EVAN: Conferences. CHUCK: And I'm kind of inclined to also talk about speaking at users groups. EVAN: Yeah you should. We should. Actually we should let you do all the talking about users groups. CHUCK: Why is that? EVAN: Because I just said ‘you’ first instead of ‘we’. CHUCK: [laughs] What did I do to you? EVAN: [chuckles] Right. CHUCK: So let’s start talking. So Evan, I think you spoken at more conferences than either Eric or I have. EVAN: Or just spoken more, as in ‘talk a lot’. Yeah, especially I’ve done quite a bit this year too. So I remember in the user voice, the person who suggested this topic started with “How do you pick your topics”, and I think it’s pretty much how do you pick your topics and how do you present and how you get accepted. Picking my topics for me is one of two things -- or actually no, it was really one thing – at the end of it, it’s always, it’s something important to me that I wanna share. That I feel strongly about and I wanna share.
