Seeking Public Speaking Opportunities

I’ve changed a lot over the years. One thing that hasn’t changed though, is that I like to help people, and share what I know. The opportunity doesn’t always present itself though. As much as writing blog posts provides that opportunity, writing can be hard to convey what I want to share with people. It’s part of why I don’t write nearly as much as I should. There’s far my knowledge in my head than I sometimes have the patience to write down. I find it easier to convey information verbally, but writing affords me the ability to plan. I think teaching people via public speaking would be a good outlet for me, since I’d get the best of both worlds.

Until this past year, I was afraid of public speaking. Since then, I’ve changed. Now I’m seeking speaking opportunities and want to share what I know. I’ve pitched the last few WordCamps and conferences that I’ve wanted to attend. They weren’t accepted, but that’s ok. Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Seattle PHP meetup. The talk I gave was teaching the Fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming Using Robots from Popular Culture, or more succinctly Robot OOP. I had been wanting to give it for a while. One of the reasons I’ve been excited at the idea of doing this talk, was because of my unique approach to presenting the ideas of OOP. Learning should be fun. So I really wanted to take this opportunity to prove it. Who wouldn’t want to watch a talk that included Wall-E, The Cylons, and Voltron? I think it worked. It went really well. I received compliments from several people that they enjoyed my talk. I don’t where it’ll be yet, but I’m looking forward to my next speaking opportunity.