I recently shared my recap of my experience as a first-time attendee of Write The Docs Australia 2023. Spoiler alert: it was a great time all around, especially learning how to do Tim Tam slams.
This was also my first time speaking at a conference. In this post, I’ll share my experience as a first-time speaker, and the wisdom I’ve gained that I’ll now bring to future speaking engagements.
How did I end up on the other side of the world?
Earlier this year, a technical writer reached out looking for guidance on how to use Heap in their docs. We set up a call, and at the end, he asked if I’d ever presented this info at a conference. I said I had not; he revealed he was a co-organizer of Write The Docs Australia, and encouraged me to pitch this as a conference talk.
This gave me the confidence boost I needed to finally check one of my career goals off the list. With the conference still months away, I started putting together my scrappy notes into a guide, which also served as the bedrock for my talk track.
Preparing my talk
I’m a writer, and not a public speaker, so putting together a talk was a challenge for me. To best prepare, I stood on the shoulders of giants by re-watching old Write The Docs talks. I took notes on the flow of information, slide formatting, and the unique speaking style each presenter had. I also consumed lots of great “how to give a great talk” content.
Here are some of the key takeaways that I applied to my talk:
- Have a cohesive flow to your talk (ending with key takeaways).
- Cover one point per slide – no more, no less.
- When presenting, don’t just read the text off of each slide. Have some content in the slide and some as part of your speaker notes for that slide.
- Include personal anecdotes and some of your humor/personality – this helps humanize your talk and makes it feel relatable.
- Simpler is better: flashy fonts, spiffy layouts, and animations are fun, but can also be distracting and cause cognitive overload for your audience. (dancing baby GIFs are so y2k, anyway).
With this in mind, I formatted my guide into a simple, one-topic-per-slide deck. For the personality and humor part, because I’m a nerd, I added in sci-fi references that aligned with the metaphor of metrics as a series of radio frequencies you have to carefully tune to find what you need.
Applying to speak
Write The Docs made it easy for me as a first-time applicant by posting their conference goals, what they’re looking for (and not looking for), and an example proposal on their website.
Some people will submit their talk proposal first, then put the talk together after they get accepted. I’m too much of an overplanner for this (I was also worried that writing up the talk would change what I’d proposed) so I put together the entire talk before submitting my proposal, and provided a a link to the slide deck for their consideration.
Since this was my first time ever applying to speak at a conference, I figured I wouldn’t get in, but would get some useful feedback for making the talk better. Then to my surprise, I got this email…
I was over the moon, and delighted to accept! Then the realization hit me: now I actually have to give the talk in front of a live studio audience. 😵💫
Pre-conference preparations
Though I got increasingly nervous as the conference drew near, the entire Write The Docs team was wonderfully communicative, supportive, and inclusive throughout the process.
Closer to the date, they reached out to request the phonetic pronunciation of my name and my pronouns. As someone with an especially difficult to pronounce last name, I appreciated this – it’s a great way for everyone involved to avoid awkward, non-inclusive situations.
They also invited me to join a private Slack channel for current and past conference speakers, which they recommend as a great place to get tips and feedback ahead of your talk. Though I didn’t use the channel (in hindsight, I should have!) I’m grateful for the existence of it as an encouraging space.
On-site encouragement
I was scheduled to be the first speaker of the day, which was a relief because I was so nervous – I doubt I would have been able to focus on the other talks while anticipating that mine was coming up.
This was a great first-time speaker conference partially because of the smaller scale. The vibe throughout was so supportive and easygoing; when they hit some technical issues using a mic during the opening, the presenter made a joke about it that turned into a running gag. This made me feel less nervous about taking the stage, as I knew any logistical issues would be taken in stride by both the organizing team and the audience.
After a very welcoming introduction by Jared, I took a deep breath, took the stage, and gave my very first conference talk ever! It’s posted here in full, though I’m still too self-conscious to watch it – it’s quite tough to hear and watch yourself present when you’re a first time speaker.
Immediately after my talk, I was cognizant of time: in my practice runs, I’d always hit the 30-minute mark, and because I’d rambled a bit out of nervousness, I was worried I’d thrown off the conference schedule. However, Jared assured me I’d finished right on time, that they had built-in buffers for this kind of thing, and that I’d done great! It was a huge relief to get that quick feedback and reassurance literal moments after leaving the stage.
My fellow speakers and attendees were so encouraging and kind, with many giving me praise and sharing what they’d learned from my talk. Some of the talks later in the conference made references to my talk, such as one speaker saying “Renée might want to look away from this part…” when talking about how they’d found value in one of the metrics I’d previously referred to as a “red herring”. There was a real sense of community, camraderie, and good humor about our profession.
A WTD speaker bonus: my talk sketch note!
One of the uniquely awesome things about the Write The Docs conferences is that each one has a sketch note artist who makes a visual sketch of your talk in real-time! I’ve always appreciated sketch notes from past conferences as a way to recall key points and reinforce what I learned.
Our sketch note artist for the conference was Angharad Neal-Williams who made this lovely sketch note of my talk. Though I felt like I rambled too much, the tidy organization of her note makes me look way more rehearsed than I felt.
To learn more about her process for creating sketch notes, check out the 5 minute lightning talk she gave at this very same conference.
Post-conference gratitude
At the end of the conference, I received a thoughtful speaker gift – a custom Write The Docs hoodie. Eager to show off my speaker cred (and needing an extra layer) I wore it on my day trip to the Moonlit Sanctuary (which I’d highly recommend visiting if you find yourself in Melbourne). The hoodie along with the animal encounters made it feel like an extra Australian experience.
Though I have some thoughts on how my talk itself could have been better – I wish I’d relied more heavily on speaker notes, and could have strategically switched around certain metrics in the talk flow – I know that “perfect is the enemy of good” which applies to both my talk and to conferences themselves (mainly, how we didn’t let mic issues hold us up from giving great talks).
In summary, I found Write The Docs to be a wonderfully supportive, encouraging, and inclusive environment for me as a first-time speaker. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has attended or spoken at one, though now you have one extra data point of proof, directly from a data-driven docs person 📈.
Speaking at this conference was such a huge career milestone for me, and I’m endlessly grateful to everyone who supported me along the way. This includes Jared (for encouraging me to apply), my colleagues Julia and Christy (who reviewed my talk and gave invaluable feedback to make it better), all of my fellow speakers and attendees for being so wonderful and kind, and of course, you, dear reader, for taking the time to my blog. Here’s to professional accomplishments 🎉