South West Test meetup November 2021
Original WIP version posted 3rd November 2021
Last year I spoke at a South West Test online meetup. This was my first public speaking engagement. The format of shorter talks definitely helped. I have spoken before at community sessions, or cross-gov meet ups. So talking about something wasn’t totally alien. You can check out mine (staring around the 16 minute mark) and all the other speakers in the recording.
Why did I talk?
It’s a bit weird to write about a talk, where I talked about writing. Feels indulgent at worst, and repetitive at best. That being said, it’s not easy to hear from people who are early in a journey. At least in my experience. There is a big leap from doing a Hello World tutorial, to building something complex. Similarly, I’ve seen lots of content from great writers, but not as much from people trying to get stared. Maybe, thats a problem with where I look, or it’s harder to find that content.
Be brave enough to suck at something new
That’s why I spoke about writing. To share my experiences of trying something new, and how it’s worked out so far. Even if I was (and still am) fumbling around with it all.
What have I done since?
Well I’ve not done much writing here to be honest…
I’ve been doing some cool things at work, which have given me ideas. I gave a proper lightning talk version of this talk at another event. Shortening the time and still sharing something, was a challenge.
But other people have…
Some people actually started their own blogs as a result of my talk! Which is an incredible result.