Fighting the Butterflies & giving your first Postgres conference talk | Claire Giordano | pgDay Paris 2024

Slides from a Postgres lightning talk I delivered at pgDay Paris 2024 as part of my PG community work at Microsoft. The talk is titled "Fighting the Butterflies & giving your first Postgres conference talk".

The abstract: You’re at a Postgres conference. You’re in the audience, taking notes, & absorbing the knowledge being shared. It’s inspiring. But have you ever wanted to fight the butterflies, take the stage, and give a talk yourself? How do you get there? What’s the recipe, and why take the risk?

Transcript

1. CLAIRE GIORDANO @clairegiordano • @pg_at_msft • @AzureDBPostgres • @citusdata Fighting the Butterflies & giving your first Postgres conference talk
2. 2 Speaker Organizer Talk Selection Team
5. 5 Why do it?
6. 6 Why fight the butterflies? Coming up with ideas Getting accepted Creating talk Practicing talk
7. 7 Why fight butterflies? Because 3 groups benefit Postgres community Your team/project You! 1 2 3
8. Teaching 1
9. Part of “Library” of learning materials 1
10. Inspire 1
11. New-hire onboarding 2
12. People give you (& team) feedback 2
13. Shine a light // raise awareness about << topic >> 2
14. Clarifies your thinking 14 3
15. Gives you & your work visibility 3
16. Help your boss to promote you 3
17. 17 Why fight the butterflies? Coming up with ideas Getting accepted Creating talk Practicing talk
18. Some do their best thinking with pen & paper
19. Others think best in the shower...
20. Give yourself permission to come up with BAD ideas!
21. 21 So where do you find all these good (& bad) ideas?
22. Write the ideas down before they disappear!
23. You’re probably already expert in something!
24. 24 8 Types / Categories of Postgres talks
25. 25 Why fight the butterflies? Coming up with ideas Getting accepted Creating talk Practicing talk
26. Do your homework!
27. Don’t make people WONDER what your talk is about
28. Your proposal has 2 different audiences!
29. Do share proof points & evidence of skills ”Speaker experience” meetups
30. 30 New speakers are welcome & encouraged!
31. New speakers Super-experienced speakers Everyone in between Call for Proposals (CFP) for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres is open until Sun Apr 7, 2024
32. 32 Should you fight the butterflies?
33. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano@hachyderm.io aka.ms/PathToCitusCon z aka.ms/posette Merci