Reflections on my third presentation in three weeks
I spoke at Girl Geek Sydney the other night, and my presentation was about blogging – blogging isn’t what it used to be, and it’s not what most people these days think about it, either.
As I gradually transpose my presentation into chunks of smaller, juicier tidbits and takeaways in the form of blog posts, I have also learned a few things – not only about this presentation I did, but the three I have done in the past three weeks.
I’ve yet to write about the first two in detail, but their time will come, too. 🙂
A quick recap
I love blogging. And my topic on Tuesday night revolved entirely around blogging. I had a disjointed, unprepared presentation which was probably quite obvious to the crowd – who were still incredibly warm and friendly!
I probably wouldn’t recommend doing three different talks in the space of three weeks.
Even though my presentation was a bit of a mess, I was glad to have people’s support and I was glad to have at least piqued the interest of some people. My phone was going crazy with the tweets! And there was an interesting discussion afterwards too. Also, to the person who asked me why I chose WordPress, I’m not sure if I made it clear enough that I also design and develop the front-end of my blog, so having something extremely customisable is important – I know some people just want ‘a space’ to write on. 😉
Selecting a topic to talk about
I think keeping it short and sweet is important. My talk last week at SydCSS about good documentation was well-rounded, had flow, and sort of just got to the point. I realise my topic about blogging was insanely broad and I could really have broken it up into the following (which is just a rough guide, really):
- Blogging and professional development
- Blogging and personal development
- Blogging and personal reflection
- What to keep in mind when starting a blog
- How to maintain a blog
- Blogging Then and blogging Now
Due to the nature of the broad topic that I attempted to explore, I have decided that I won’t be doing that talk again in full. I would love to prepare more talks that focus on specific aspects of blogging, and that really extrapolate from the original talk I did.
Quick takeaways from the talk
If you attended the talk and want a refresher of the takeaways:
- Blogging is not a competition. It’s not about who can write or who is the best writer.
- You can write – write for yourself. Not what other people expect.
- Blogs don’t have to fit into a category. Write about whatever you want.
- Setting an expectation will put pressure on you. (So don’t do it unless you are ready!)
- Blogging should never feel like a chore. Write as often or as little as you like.
- Blogging is great for personal and professional development, as well as sharing ideas and making friends.
Download the slides
I’m not fond of these slides but in case you are interested, I have uploaded them to Dropbox.
Thank you to all who attended and those who followed up with me on social media afterwards. I hope to meet you at future events! If you have questions too, you can leave them below or chat with me over Twitter or via email. 😄 In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for more in-depth posts related to my talk.
Leave a Comment