I'm emerging into the speaking space over the past half year. The original trigger was a desire to give back to the community and develop skills in communication that could serve me as a director or CTO or if I choose to pivot into teaching at some point down my path. As you said, these things offer intrinsic benefits and aren't the topic of your article.
What I found in submitting to my first conference was that I felt like an unknown person and so I started writing after the CFP ended on KillAllDefects.com on Software Quality in order for the speaker panel to understand who I am and what I think about.
Once I was selected, however, I kept writing - first in order to flesh out my ideas more before the talk (it's a huge bit of work as you mentioned - at least 40 hours). When I did come out to give my talk, I had a lot to say and a central place to push people to learn more about software quality.
That said, I had no concrete product or goal other than this: Become known as an expert in software quality.
I'd say it was somewhat accomplished - at least measurable results came out of it. I'm not the name people think of necessarily, or extremely well known, but it's opening up writing and partnership opportunities via using the act of applying to speak and preparing to speak as a catalyst for professional development.
I think you yourself can be the goal or product (which touches on your developer evangelist point), and I think that the preparation process can also have byproducts in the form of a series of technical articles. True, you're never going to build as much content as you would normally, but it can drive you to create content focused on related topics, which is nice.
Incidentally, I've watched at least a couple of your older Pluralsight courses and enjoyed them. Kudos to you.
Wow -- first of all, thanks for the kind words and for watching the courses!
And, honestly, I think just thinking through contact capture beyond the conference probably puts you in at least the 80th percentile in terms of what I'm talking about here.
It takes the game from "show up, talk, end of story," to "show up, talk, call to action back to your site, build a somewhat sticky following via specific expertise." And the latter is better.
It makes me think of high school/college physics. If your ultimate goal is kinetic energy, most conference speaking is basically heat (waste, in that it dissipates uselessly into space). You're instead generating potential energy, which you can later optionally convert into kinetic energy.
Potential / Kinetic energy is an interesting lens and I think that squares a lot with my thinking on reading books and the like on software development. Concepts I encounter and experience in my day-to-day life is this potential energy which I then convert to kinetic via writing or speaking.
And yes, both are heat - they flare up - get people's attention for a brief period, then die down. Each blog article is essentially a log on a fire, so I try to push out a few a week as my "normal" pace, scaling up and down depending on other commitments.
Most of them are brief benefits to myself and the reader, but a few of these logs catch people's eyes and send other opportunities my way, which inevitably leads to me researching new things and discovering MORE potential energy.
The end goal is more vague, but it's a beautiful fire to tend.
I love this article.
I'm emerging into the speaking space over the past half year. The original trigger was a desire to give back to the community and develop skills in communication that could serve me as a director or CTO or if I choose to pivot into teaching at some point down my path. As you said, these things offer intrinsic benefits and aren't the topic of your article.
What I found in submitting to my first conference was that I felt like an unknown person and so I started writing after the CFP ended on KillAllDefects.com on Software Quality in order for the speaker panel to understand who I am and what I think about.
Once I was selected, however, I kept writing - first in order to flesh out my ideas more before the talk (it's a huge bit of work as you mentioned - at least 40 hours). When I did come out to give my talk, I had a lot to say and a central place to push people to learn more about software quality.
That said, I had no concrete product or goal other than this: Become known as an expert in software quality.
I'd say it was somewhat accomplished - at least measurable results came out of it. I'm not the name people think of necessarily, or extremely well known, but it's opening up writing and partnership opportunities via using the act of applying to speak and preparing to speak as a catalyst for professional development.
I think you yourself can be the goal or product (which touches on your developer evangelist point), and I think that the preparation process can also have byproducts in the form of a series of technical articles. True, you're never going to build as much content as you would normally, but it can drive you to create content focused on related topics, which is nice.
Incidentally, I've watched at least a couple of your older Pluralsight courses and enjoyed them. Kudos to you.
Wow -- first of all, thanks for the kind words and for watching the courses!
And, honestly, I think just thinking through contact capture beyond the conference probably puts you in at least the 80th percentile in terms of what I'm talking about here.
It takes the game from "show up, talk, end of story," to "show up, talk, call to action back to your site, build a somewhat sticky following via specific expertise." And the latter is better.
It makes me think of high school/college physics. If your ultimate goal is kinetic energy, most conference speaking is basically heat (waste, in that it dissipates uselessly into space). You're instead generating potential energy, which you can later optionally convert into kinetic energy.
Potential / Kinetic energy is an interesting lens and I think that squares a lot with my thinking on reading books and the like on software development. Concepts I encounter and experience in my day-to-day life is this potential energy which I then convert to kinetic via writing or speaking.
And yes, both are heat - they flare up - get people's attention for a brief period, then die down. Each blog article is essentially a log on a fire, so I try to push out a few a week as my "normal" pace, scaling up and down depending on other commitments.
Most of them are brief benefits to myself and the reader, but a few of these logs catch people's eyes and send other opportunities my way, which inevitably leads to me researching new things and discovering MORE potential energy.
The end goal is more vague, but it's a beautiful fire to tend.
Well said :D