#speakering

Babboleo, la radio più ascoltata in Liguria www.babboleo.it

Entertainment, news, radio e una meravigliosa App per rimanere aggiornati anche in viaggio. 

We’re riding back into night, out of the dream on an overnight train. I’ve grown used to the everlasting light; sunset again will be strange.

The tent is packed, though travels continue. Trondheim (and my birthday!) in the morning, Berlin in a couple of days. A few days of conference near Dusseldorf for me, then flying back out of Berlin, Hawaii and Jon’s family for a few days, London for another conference for few days more.

After London (mid July, if you’re keeping track), Jon and I part ways. There are no males allowed for the four week STEM program I’m mentoring in Saudi Arabia.

But we’re already planning the next phase: re-meeting in New York to see friends, run the first Tesselcamp, and maybe air out the tent. Seattle, maybe, for a few weeks. October, Japan. November, China, then a conference in Singapore.

I haven’t slept more than four nights in the same place since May, in Alaska. But the slow on-foot many-days travel we’ve been doing doesn’t wear. It’s not the same tired you get from failing to sleep on a plane or a train.

I feel rested. Not ready to move on, exactly (it was a sparkling blue day when we left), but full of life.

I’m on board a flight as I write. I got up at 4am Austin time, which would be twoish if my body still thinks I’m in Seattle, or 1am where I’m headed. It’s not really worth it to adjust; I’m not sleeping well at any rate.

I get manic, amped up just thinking about giving my conference talks. I rehearse them in head, muttering the words aloud into my hotel pillow, and gain energy rather than falling asleep. Sometimes I’ll have to jump up and fix a slide before I can relax. I’m not nervous, as such. I just want to get it right.

My unemployed lifestyle: in between reading books, I give talks and workshops in exchange for hotel, airfare, usually a speaker dinner. I meet passionate people, anywhere in the world. I don’t get paid, but I have almost no expenses. Between talks, I live cheaply. I have my camping gear, and my laptop if I need to work.

There’s a small cadre of us, speaking eccentrics, most with flexible jobs or freelance gigs. Nobody remembers what time it is, and months are measured by their conference season. “Are you going to that one in Germany?” We can say to each other. “You should do this Amsterdam one, I’ll intro you.” You never know what you’re going to get, but you usually feel taken care of, as a speaker. You’re there to lead thought, and everyone wants you to think well of them.

I wonder at how easy it is for me to do this. I often feel like I haven’t earned it, though in rational moments I know I’m as good as anybody on that stage. More: it’s weird to me that anybody should be given this sort of platform. That there are people who really want to hear what I- or any of us- say.

I hope they find it worth their time to have listened to me.

When I speak, I try to talk about ideals, values, inclusivity. Tech is my Trojan horse to building a better society, I hope. It’s hard to measure impact.

Getting asked to speak is an honor; being able to do so is a privilege. I happen to have the requisite mental, physical, financial state to do this, and it’s disconcerting to think about. I think, “I don’t deserve this”. Then I think, “nobody deserves this”: the “this” being the respect, the flights, the perks. Finally, I think, “perhaps, everyone deserves this”: the respect, the platform from which to be heard. And then I go and recommend other people to conferences, send out links for conference proposals to my Twitter friends.

The process is variations on a theme: find a conference’s call for speakers. Check that they have a code of conduct, and that they cover speaker travel. Fill out the application- usually a paragraph or two on what you want to talk about. Press submit. Wait for a response- even the rejections are often positive, with offers of free tickets or just a friendly tone. If accepted, check the calendar. Say yes.

The next part varies. My easiest conferences are workshops- I have this prewritten. I show up with my kit and the workshop URL. Things go wrong, but it’s usually one thing at a time: some install script doesn’t work on some operating system. Bad conference wifi. Wrong version of Node. I can handle it while walking around the room. Nothing worth worrying about until you get on site.

If it’s a talk, it’s more involved. My modus operandi is to let anxiety build over months or weeks, keeping it in the back of my mind just enough to take emotional energy but not enough to do anything about it. As the weeks count down, I sit myself down and finally write the talk. A few days later, I probably scrap the talk and start over, then re-rehearse the talk. This means I feel somewhat prepared when I get to the conference, so I scrap and re-write it again while gauging the audience and other speakers. This gives me a relaxed and casual stage presence, because at that point I’m giving most of the talk off the cuff. I think my nervous energy and raw subject passion/idealism effectively counterbalances the bags under my eyes.

Despite my absurd lead-up process, the moment I’m mic’d I feel fine, even poised. It all adds to the surrealism of the lived experience of being a conference speaker: locally and temporally famous, dreaming-tired. You make your own meaning this way. Your talk is your message. If the talk came off right, you make people think.