Today we change things up a bit and talk to someone who has never taken the stage at a conference…yet. Designer, Aura Seltzer, joins us as she prepares for her first public speaking engagement at Confab. Aura tells us about how she has been prepping for the conference, why she wants to start public speaking, and how designing slides is different than designing web sites.

This is the last episode of our Season 3. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with more stories about taking the stage at conferences.

Episode 21 with Aura Seltzer

Let's dig into public speaking with JavaScript-maker, art-maker, writing-maker: Jenn Schiffer! Jenn started in public speaking through teaching and then explains how she made the adjustment to speaking at conferences and how that's been awesome. We also talk about how the lack of meetups near Jenn in North Jersey led her to start her own meetup! Hear how she got that started, challenges with it, how to lead groups, and how to handle hecklers.

Also hear about how Jenn's writing has turned into invites to give satirical talks! She'll also be emceeing CSSConf. How cool is that?!

Let's talk public speaking in a foreign country on this episode of the Ladies in Tech podcast! Designer, Yesenia Perez-Cruz, joins us after her recent trip to Brazil, where she explains some of the adjustments she made for speaking to an international audience. We'll also talk about prepping for your conference talk and how to know if your idea for a talk is a good one.

Jonathan Snook joins us and talks about SMACSS, writing, workshops and more! Listen to hear about how Jonathan took an idea and expanded that idea into a book and series of workshops. Also find out his take on how to keep material fresh and interesting when you repeat information for different groups of people. To round things out, we’ll also ask Jonathan to tell us about when things at a conference went way unexpected and how he came out of that unscathed.

Ever wonder what it's like to run a workshop? Speaking all day comes with a new set of rewards and challenges, find out more about those as Stacey Mulcahy joins us on the podcast. We'll talk about how public speaking differs between all day workshops versus an hour-long talk. We'll also talk about what makes a workshop successful, how to plan one, and how to come up with topics to speak about.

This week Rachel Nabors joins us as we take a look at some topics that are often untouched when it comes to public speaking. How do you decide when to say yes or no to a speaking engagement? Should you charge a speaker fee? How much does it cost you to give a talk? How does public speaking help your independent business? Join us as we share things we've learned about helping your career with public speaking and what can hurt it.

This week we are joined by the minds behind Environments for Humans, Ari Stiles and Christopher Schmitt! They take us behind the scenes of conference organizing. E4H runs a variety of online conferences and Ari and Christopher talk to use about some of the differences that you'll encounter in preparing and speaking at an online conference. They also share with us information about CSS Dev Conference, a conference taking place in New Orleans this October and the call for speakers is open right now! Listen to the show and then go submit a talk!

We're back with season 3 and super happy to kick things off with guest, Jonathan Kahn! Jonathan runs #dareconf, a unique conference taking place this September in London. Submissions for this years talks are currently open! Along with that, they're offering a talk development program to help prepare speakers for their presentations. Great for first time or many-th time speakers! It's an amazing opportunity! Listen to our show to find out more about the conference, the program, and then go submit!

This week we conclude season 2 by welcoming digital artist and particle mastermind, Seb Lee-Delisle to the show. We go out with a pixel-firework bang as Seb tells us quite different answers to our questions on nerves and presentations styles than we've heard before. Proving once again, that there might not be one speaking formula for success for everyone, but finding what works for you is a must! Seb approaches speaking with a fun, laid-back attitude and loves live coding! He even tells us about what to do when that live coding doesn't go as planned. Hear what he has to say in our last episode of this season.

This week we welcome freelance UX consultant, Jenn Downs to the show. Jenn shares what she’s learned since her first talk and how she got started speaking. (She even wrote an article about it, too.) She tells us how important it is to watch yourself on video even if it sounds like the hardest thing ever, and how she got over her fear of public speaking to get up on stage.

About Jenn

For the past 6 years, Jenn Downs swung her way through the jungle at MailChimp from support to tech writing to UX Design Research. But in January of 2014 she was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug and left MailChimp to start a family business. She is now the Business/Tech Manager for Carpenter Koby Downs in Atlanta. Never one to only do one thing at a time, Jenn is also a freelance UX and email marketing consultant and a mentor for Code for America. Outside of being web nerd, Jenn is also a songwriter and plays bass and guitar in a few bands in Atlanta.

Episode 10: Show Links

BeParticular.com

@BeParticular

Thanks to this week’s sponsor: Harvest

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