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When top speakers contradict each other…
By Bruno Souza | event
"Let me show my slides" said the Community Evangelist Scott McAllister at the Mentoring Hub at KCDC.
Scott was mentoring on how to prepare a presentation…
"I go directly into the content" he said.
"Now… Where do I introduce myself?" Scott asks, while scrolling through his slides…
He scrolls and scrolls… His introduction doesn't come until…
"The very end, where I open for questions" he concludes, showing his last slide, with his picture and contact information.
This is very good advice for speaker. Jump right into the content.
Yet…
Listen to what the Java Champion Brian Vermeer says on his Mentorship Hub participation:
"Always put your own storyline in the title"
And he concludes:
"This makes your talk stand out among similar topics".
Hummm…
So which it?
Do you promote your story in the title?
Or at the very end of the presentaion?
Those are not contradictions, because they are not talking about the same thing…
Having your story reflected in the title is not really about you…
It is about your audience!
It is you using your story to connect with developers going through the same thing as you.
On the other hand…
Going directly into the content, and not talking about you, is also not about you!
It is about your audience!
It is respecting your audience, that is interested in solving their problems, and not in hearing about you, your contacts or the beautiful dogs you have…
So…
Both seemly contradictory things…
Are actually the same thing:
It is you focusing not on you, but on your audience!
And this is not an advice just so you can become a speaker…
It is an advice for your career!!
The big, difficult career moves…
When you want to pass an interview…
Or lead a team of developers…
Maybe negotiate a better salary…
Get a promotion, give a talk, participate on open source…
Launch your own business or build financial independence…
All those things are NOT about you.
They are all about THEM…
When you get in this mindset of focusing outside of you, focus on your "audience", that is when you can do the things that seem so hard and impossible…
And that is when you see Scott's and Brian's seemly contradictory advice more than simply a way to give a presentation. They are a way to build your career!
And there is a way to build exactly this "other-ish" focus…
And… That is not a contradiction…
I share daily career insights to help you build that focus on your career…
Subscribe here to receive them:
https://code4.life
Cheers,
Bruno.
The "Contradicting Contradictions" Man