Last month I had the privilege of delivering one of the keynote presentations at the Microsoft Tech.Ed conference on the Gold Coast. Interestingly, I was invited to speak not as a user experience designer (which is usually the case when I give a talk) but as the author of Charlie Weatherburn and the Flying Machine.
Now, I’ve done a bit of public speaking, but this was hands-down the biggest, most professional, highest profile event that I’ve ever spoken at. Nearly 3,000 people were in attendance, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a teensy bit nervous before going on stage (especially given the MC of the night who introduced me was none other than Adam Spencer, the talented comedian whose breakfast radio show I grew up listening to).
Luckily, I put a lot of effort into preparing for my 7 minutes of fame, and I’m reasonably happy with how it went. I’ve made my slides available on SlideShare, which lets you listen along to the audio of my talk at the same time:
If you’d rather watch the video of me pacing around the stage instead, that’s available too:
The video uses Silverlight, which means it won’t play if Silverlight is not installed on your computer. Never fear! The video is available for download in multiple formats (although some of the files are quite big!)
While speaking at Tech.Ed was incredibly daunting, it was also an enormous thrill and I would definitely do it again. I’m grateful to the organisers for believing in me, and to Adam and the other presenters who were very encouraging and supportive on the day. Oh, and thanks to all of the attendees who approached me after the talk was over to buy a copy of the book. I took 20 copies with me to the Gold Coast and sold out there and then!
