Speak at a major industry conference

“After the first day of the conference, I was dead. I’m not kidding. I was in bed before 8 pm that night because I was so drained from the conference. So on the day of my presentation, I knew I had to do my normal morning routine and skip the talks before mine. Here’s what happened… The conference doors opened at 8 am but the first talk wasn’t until 9 pm. So on the first day, I was there by 8:30. And if you know me, then you know that I like to take it a little slow in the mornings. I like to workout, make myself breakfast, shower, get ready, and then start work around 9:30 or 10 am. So on the first day, I completely messed up my morning routine and I felt totally off all day long. And on the day of my talk, I knew I couldn’t do that! So instead of forcing myself to be there by 8:30 again, I took my time in the morning.”

“Suddenly, tech meetups all over the world were fully remote. If you looked, you could find hundreds of meetups across the globe that you can now participate in virtually. I took advantage of that and submitted my talk to a bunch of local Toronto meetups and eventually to a few across the United States and Europe. It was a mixed experience for sure. For 5 or 6 months I was speaking and delivering my talk at 1 or 2 meetups a month. The opportunity to get experience, gain confidence and practice speaking in front of others was invaluable. But that’s just it… it wasn’t really in front of others, not in the same way as an in-person conference. Some of the meetups were very 1-directional with very little facilitation or encouraged engagement. Individuals at the time were also not confident in participating in discussions like they were in person. While virtual tech conferences were not that rare before the Pandemic, in 2021 we saw a new volume of entirely remote conferences start to appear. Again, I used this opportunity to submit CFPs and found myself getting accepted at a few. They suffered the same lack of engagement as the meetups. Some of the conferences were very productionalized, which was neat to participate in, but literally was a one-way mirror in some cases leaving you feeling like you are presenting to a brick wall.”