Last night I was given the opportunity to come back to Des Moines (after being there just two weeks ago with NoFluff) and talk with the Central Iowa Java Users Group. My talk was entitled “Integrating AJAX into the Enterprise”, which was very well received. Thank you to everyone there last night, I really enjoyed talking with you! The slides will be up on my Presentations page sometime today.Update: slides are posted now… enjoy!
Last night was the last stop in “Secoske’s Summer Speaking Tour 2006″ (I just made that up) and I am very relieved. As I have posted before, I had a lot of talks (at least for me) in the last two months-and-some-days, and it was difficult to prepare for all of them, but I have had a blast! This has been an amazing year for me. Speaking at NoFluff and OSCON, CIJUG, Omaha’s Dynamic Languages User’s Group, and of course home sweet home OJUG, I have gotten the chance to meet and talk with so many amazing people, doing amazing things. I have learned a lot about the technologies I’ve talked about (Ruby/Rails, Java Performance tools, AJAX) and a lot about me.
I really enjoy speaking/teaching. I first started teaching while in Community College (they let me teach Intermediate DOS). At that point in my path I was definetly NOT ready for something of that magnitude. I knew the material, but was not nearly confident enough to talk in front of a class (or any group of people for that matter). And I did not do the best job because of that.
Times have changed quite a bit since then (a decade ago already!), and today I feel a lot stronger in my presentation skills. However, every time I get in front of a group of people I still feel like the consultant/mildly retarded person in today’s Dilbert:
And frankly, I wish I knew too! 
Anyone can speak
I have started to take another view of all this speaking stuff: I may not - am most likely not in fact - be an expert in whatever it is I am talking about, but I do know something about the topic, and I have my own experience and background that provides color and context to the topic, and that is the value I can bring to the talk. And you know what the absolute greatest thing is about this veiw? It says that anybody who wants to talk can provide their color and context to the discussion. And we all grow from that. The trick seems to be getting people to want to.
That is one of the big reasons why I push so much at OJUG for new people to get up and talk. I feel that we are a unique, local platform for people who have not had the chance or willingness to speak in public to get up in front of a group familiar people and talk about something that interests them. To that end, we (the OJUG Leadership) have been trying to coax people to give 5,10,15 minute talks on a topic of their choice (I don’t even care if its Java related, as long as they are passionate about it). I don’t want to sound too much like Kathy Sierra (not that thats a bad thing at all!), but when people share what they are passionate about, then we all get something out of it… we all are a little smarter.
Zen and Conversations
While I am rambling, I thought I would throw one more thing out there. Last night was great for another reason. I felt like I had a conversation with the people at the JUG meeting. I was slightly disrobed (not quite naked). And for those of you who have absolutely no idea (or are afraid you do have an idea) what I am talking about, visit Presentation Zen. I did not use a podium (haven’t in a long time actually… man that feels good), and felt like it was much more “talking with friends” than a lecture. And that is so awesome. I feel like I was able to convey so much more than my dry, cliche bullet point slides could have ever done if I had just repeated what was on them. I am really looking forward to the day when I do not need slides at all (going fully naked). I tried that once, when I presented Test Driven Development to OJUG, with just an open, empty word document and Eclipse. That was uncomforable, but liberating at the same time (and obviously difficult for me to explain). I am still very much learning (aren’t we all still very much learning?), and I am happy to be on this path.
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