Tech Talk Brainstorming

Speaking professionally is a great way to deepen your understanding of a topic, show off what you've learned, make new friends in the industry, and even unlock new opportunities. Whether it's for a meetup, a conference, or even here internally at work, devs often say "but don't have anything to talk about." I assure you that isn't true. In this workshop we will go through several exercises to get your tech talk ideas flowing and share them around with the group. By the end you should have several ideas!

Transcript

1. Tech Talk Brainstorming: You Have Lots to Talk About 1 Audrey Troutt
2. 2 1. Write on paper 2. No judging (yourself, your ideas, or anyone else, or their ideas) Rules
3. For each prompt: • 5 minutes writing by yourself • ~3 people share some ideas 3 Workshop Plan
4. Think back to a year ago. What would you have wanted to know? What advice would you need?
5. What’s your hobby? What lessons are shared between your hobby and your job?
6. Think of a problem you’ve had in the past month or two: If you did solve it, how did you solve it? Were there other ways you could have solved it? Why did you pick the way that you did? If you came across the same problem again, what would you do differently? If you didn’t solve it, what went wrong? How could others avoid it in the future?
7. What’s a new technology or technique that you’ve heard of recently, but don’t know much about?
8. What’s something you didn’t know when you started your career that you know now?
9. 9 You can no longer say you have nothing to talk about! Writing talks is a separate workshop, but here’s a formula: • Explain the problem • Explain the ideal situation • Explain your solution and the path to get there • Tell a story So Now What?
10. 10 FURTHER INSPIRATION Post: source of these questions and more http://lucybain.com/blog/2016/conference-proposal-ideas Video: How to be an Android Expert https://news.realm.io/news/droidcon-boston-chiu-ki-chan-how-to-be-an-android-ex pert/ she’s talking about Android, but this applies to anything Newsletter: inspiration, tips, and heads up on conf speaking opportunities https://tinyletter.com/techspeak Conf/community: for tech women http://www.writespeakcode.com/