I had thought the worst case scenario for my Ignite talk last night would be that I’d pee myself. It turns out that I don’t have much of an imagination, because the real worst thing would be that they liked my talk and were making me do it again the next morning at the keynote. Where there were, I dunno, something less than 1000 of people in the room and another 10,000 or so online watching the live stream. No pressure and stuff.
Note to self: me in the evening after a beer is a much better speaker than me the next morning with neither sleep nor beers. Total shock on that one, woo.
I don’t know when I last had as much fun and as much stress at the same time*. It was like having sex on a trapeze. I’m guessing.
Time to board the plane!
*Note I mean about the conference, not the talk, it wasn’t all that fun, really.
YAY you – way to go!
WE all knew you could do it!
You’re frigging insane. I would have been absolutely tongue-tied in front of that many people.
@Sue I was helped by 2 things:
1. The positioning of the lights meant that I couldn’t see the audience, and
2. I didn’t know how many people would be watching the live webcast until after I talked (I was smart enough not to ask).
I am currently living in fear of the video going online, though.
You’ve done 11k people now, so any smaller talk should be easy.
But now, I really should ask about that trampoline…
Good work. Good tie, also. I look forward to the video.
Never mind the tie. Great jeans!
And you know what? I find bigger crowds much easier to talk to, or give any performance in front of. A large group tends to be friendlier and easier to get to laugh, or sympathize with you, or anything. I’ve been comfortable in front of bigger crowds (dozens, hundreds, or more) since high school, but it took longer for me to be able to work as effectively in front of classroom-sized groups, where individual personalities have more of an influence.
But I’m a ham by nature, so that may be part of it.
Online the video is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w4nNs9MS60
Great Talk and slides.
I’d like to say that you’re following in my footsteps, but the only talk I gave at a conference had 2 or 3 in the audience, and one was an organizer and another the next speaker. That means you win by 11000/3. Owch!
Great talk, Gillian! – and thanks @Marc for posting the Youtube link.
@robbat2 Trapeze, not trampoline. I can’t see trampolines being any fun, would completely screw with your rhythm. Plus not necessarily that dangerous/stressful.
@Marc My morning was ruined by my workmates watching the video in front of me. And recognized themselves where I talked about the sysadmins mocking me.
@Luke I think I was compensating for having to do a non-dirty talk by being mildly inappropriate. [ed. I changed my original title of this blog post as it was found overly offensive.]
Good talk, but fantastic blog post title.