Thread by @danmall

Reflections from a speaker about doing a new (kind of) talk.

A thread.

Over a year ago, Vitaly from @smashingmag asked me if I’d be game to do a conference talk without slides, something more about showing work in action.

I was immediately excited to do it, as I could immediately think of how I’d do that, since I do that almost daily with my apprentices (v3.danielmall.com/articles/appre…).

(I wrote the details of that framework here: danmall.me/articles/steal…)

I normally don’t stress too much about talks nowadays, but this one was a bit different. Trying to do final prep the night before was difficult, because I didn’t have slides to review.

Also, because of the format of the talk, I didn’t WANT to prep extensively. Too much prep might dilute the whole concept of showing how I make decisions while designing.

So I decided the best prep would probably to get the best night’s sleep I could get. 💤

Yesterday, I gave that talk.

I planned to redesign the @RAICESTEXAS site on stage. In my rough rehearsals, I designed a fair bit of the site. On stage, all I got to was buttons. 😶

I walked off stage uneasy about the talk, and felt uneasy about it all day. One thing I’m most proud of is my talks is feeling like I share A LOT. With this one, I didn't feel like I shared enough… barely anything at all.

The feedback I got from attendees was all nice, but I also know that people who hated it probably wouldn’t come up to me to say so.

After sleeping on it though, now I feel GREAT about the talk. Two pieces of feedback I got that stand out:

1. A few designers felt validated in their processes by seeing mine.

2. A few developers said design felt less intimidating now, both to understand as well as to try.

As a speaker, that’s more than a great outcome.

Upon reflection, getting an outcome like that without spending weeks and months laboring over crafting the “perfect” narrative for just the right sequence and quantity of slides is wonderful!

I tend to view my talks as a performance. And I think there’s merit to that.

But I hadn’t considered much that there’s another worthwhile format. In the language of @blairenns’s Win Without Pitching Manifesto (amzn.to/2N0eiyi), I could “replace presentations with conversations.” I do that almost completely in client work but not for conferences.

I didn’t expect this, but I’m now seriously considering this format as a way I do talks at other conferences. (I’d love feedback about that from other conference organizers, if you have opinions.)

All this is to say: thanks to Vitaly and the @smashingmag crew for challenging the typical format with @smashingconf Toronto. I learned a lot about how I can be a better speaker.

#smashingconf