Back when I wrote my balance for last year, I set a goal for myself to give at least one talk this year, but I was really doubtful I’d get admitted into one of these famous and prestigious conferences. I decided to give it a shot anyways, and I sent proposals to the conferences I liked. Many turned me down because they had (other) awesome speakers lined up, couldn’t afford to accomodate my travel expense from and back to Argentina, or because the proposal didn’t quite fit with the kind of talks they were looking for. That shouldn’t deter you! Try and write a couple of proposals about topics that really, really interest you, and don’t be let down by conferences being unable to pick your proposal!
This year also is, coincidentally, the first year I attended a JavaScript conference. I was around for JSFest in San Francisco, and it had really amusing talks. These ranged from the NES console’s inner workings, to underwater robots, commanding CNC machines to draw a JS logo on a piece of wood, and anything mildly related to JS in between. I later attended JSConf UY, which wasn’t as breath-taking as JSFest, but it was still worthwhile.
In this brief post, I mostly wanted to share a few tips for those interested in getting into public speaking. Given that I don’t have any tangible knowledge about public speaking, I’ll just refer you to what I think are great resources you can learn from.
- Speaking.io is a great collection of resources and teachings from Zach Holman, a GitHub employee
- @CallbackWomen on Twitter tweets tirelessly about open CFP (Call For Proposals), women in tech, and public speaking advice
- Lanyrd also has a section dedicated to active CFP, and you can filter according to your interests
- Watch Yourself is a reminder that public speaking isn’t as terrible as it sometimes is made out to be
- How to write a compelling proposal is a must-read article!
- USENIX also has an interesting article on how to tackle a talk proposal
- All of We Are All Awesome! is a must-read, actually
- Rehearse!
- If you have any other resources you think I should link to, please post a comment here!
To be honest I mostly relied on Zach’s Speaking.io, as it has tons of really good advice regarding both on-stage and off-stage performance. If you’re interested in getting into public speaking at all, I suggest you read through the entire site. It’s not that much.
Lastly, some obligatory marketing regarding my upcoming book!
JavaScript Application Design
I’m thrilled to announce that my book has a new cover, now matching the true colors of JavaScript. Behold!
I’ve been hard at work updating the book, and I’m getting closer to completing it! It now features sample code on a wide variety of topics, listed below.
- Using package managers and learning Common.JS
- Backbone and Common.JS, using Browserify
- Writing JavaScript tests with
tapefor the server and the browser - All kinds of asynchronous control alternatives
- Wrapping your head around closures, hoisting, and
this - Encrypting environment configuration for safer version control
- Automating Heroku deployments through Grunt
- And much, much more!
Naturally, all of the self-contained examples that you can find in the open-source repository are also discussed at length in the book. If you are attending one of the conferences I’ve mentioned earlier, make sure to stop by my talks and get a discount code from me!
See you at JSConf?
P.S: Go watch Front End Ops Conference Live Stream!
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