I was inspired by three different sources to give a talk at Barcamp this past Saturday.
First, I attended the inaugural Write/Speak/Code conference last year. During the Write day, we learned how to own our expertise and write op ed columns (something that’s on my short term goal list). The Speak day was all about the mechanics of drafting and submitting talks. (Pam Selle and I spoke on the Code day about feminist models for open source participation).
Second, two of my favorite tech ladies recently started a newsletter to help people get started with speaking and to support existing speakers.
Finally, I was pointed to Julie Pagano‘s full day workshop. I reached out to her and then distilled the material down to the brainstorming and abstract drafting exercises. I adapted the “own your expertise” section from Write/Speak/Code and voilà, I had a short format workshop.
I got in early to put my talk on the board. The board filled up pretty quickly.
I chose the first session in hopes that the workshop would inspire someone to give a talk later in the day.
I started with a brief overview of the workshop and expectations and quickly got out of the way. We alternated between solo exercises and group discussions for each phase of the workshop.
We started out in groups of 8 for the expertise exercise. Each group member introduced themselves as an expert. If time remained, they discussed some related questions.
For the second exercise they brainstormed talk ideas and discussed in groups of 4.
The final exercise was drafting an abstract and getting feedback from someone else in the room.
The group discussions were lively and all attendees were engaged. I don’t think I lost anyone despite “vote with your feet” being one of the tenets of Barcamp.
After lunch, I held a second study hall session. One of the participants came for feedback on his presentation that he was planning to give that afternoon.
Did you attend? How did you like it? How could it be improved? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments. Check out what Technically Philly had to say!
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