T his week I had the great privilege of speaking at this year’s Web Developers Conference at the UWE exhibition and Conference Center in Bristol. It was a truly fantastic day, filled with interesting talks on a wide range of subjects. The day was aimed, in large part, at the student population of Bristol – but there was a fantastic turnout from professionals as well as those still studying this little industry of ours.
I often wonder how we must all look from the perspective of an outsider, looking in. We have a fairly crazy community of people all fighting each other but helping each other at the same time. I can’t actually think of any other industry like it. I wonder how many of us put students off from entering into this world, rather than encouraging them to join it?
A Short Recap
The day started off with @hereinthehive, who you may know from @speaktheweb. He gave a compelling talk about the web and its history, as well abstracting our definition of what the web is into segments, periodic tables, and objects. Fascinating stuff. @elliotkember was next up with an excellent presentation on JQuery which had everyone interested. Elliott, by the way, also had by far the best slide transitions of the day. Mmmm sparkles.
After a short break @jamfactory and @Efergan took to the stage with a truly excellent presentation on what to expect from the web design industry, with some excellent insights. And skipping action. @Anna_Debenham followed as the last speaker before lunch with a very detailed talk on how she got into the industry and what others should look out for.
With a full stomach, @iamkeir and @tholder took up the torch and delivered a valuable presentation on working relationships – I think I probably learned more from this presentation than any other, purely because diplomacy really isn’t my strong suit. Another break for some “networking” and I was up next! More on that later.
The final (Keynote) speaker of the day was @MarkBoulton who, after some very kind words about my talk, went on to deliver an amazing insight into working with clients that can only possibly be gained by working in the industry for over ten years. I’ve already put one of Mark’s client communication strategies into action this very day – which I’m hoping for a good response from!
The whole day was organised by the fantastic @AlexOlder – who really pulled it out of the bag and put on a truly great event, with a new record for attendance in @webdevconf’s fourth year. Let’s hope next year is even bigger!
My Session
So, my first big bit of public speaking… I’m actually very pleased with how it all went and I think it was pretty well received. Essentially I wanted to talk about what I’ve been doing with this site/blog for the last two years, and some of the successes and failures that I’ve had with that.
I won’t go on about it though, instead I present to you here both video content and slides from the talk itself. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!
Slides:
You can also download the full copy of these slides (with proper typography and not ugly, SlideShare-induced, Arial) from the awesome @noteandpoint website here.
Hey John,
I primarily watched that to see myself steal the limelight and win that first red bull ;)
I know when you’re at a conference and meet a speaker it always seem a bit scripted, I walk up and say “Loved your talk” and we chat from there – I don’t know if you feel people always tell you the truth – but I was truly inspired by your talk, in all honesty. Again, being honest I went into it not really knowing what to expect and a bit apprehensive but by the end I felt excited about everything again!
When I think of myself as a web developer I just see some student who is pretty okay at coding but is never going to be one of those names – I’ve certainly gone through the 5 stages of denial you talk about – but when your talk had finished I felt that actually, I could be the next Andy Budd or Tim Van Damme or whoever. I think a great example of this is Rob Hawkes, who first with Google Balls and now with his flying-sperm / rockets (!) has certainly pushed himself forwards more and people are taking note – between your talk and his achievements in the past couple of months (and he’s now writing a book – jammy git :P) I really do feel that I can do something more than just be the average freelancer with a couple of hundred twitter followers and average sized clients.
This may all sound like shit, but it’s 3am so forgive me :P
And just for the record it was fantastic to meet you after talking toy ou on Twitter for around 18 months or so, and I look forward to catching up at another conference or something!
Cheers,
Jack.
Hey Jack, without doubt one of the best and most sincere comments that I’ve ever had. Thanks mate :)
John
One of the most relevant talks I’ve seen in a long time. Resonated really strongly with me, great work John. Keep doing what you do
You were one of the speakers there whom I had no clue what to expect. You completely delivered and did an awesome lecture that was interesting, funny and – at one point – depressing.
The lecture aside it was awesome chilling out over at The Apple and having a laugh, hope to do it again some time. Even if you did make me swear against my will.
John, this is very well done. Your point about helping others is extremely important when it comes to building a personal brand.
It’s a great talk John – and one I wish I had experienced first hand. There’s a lot to take away from what you said, and judging by the comments on twitter, a lot of other people have taken some great advice from it too.
As I mentioned here (http://mrqwest.co.uk/127), personal branding does interest me – but it’s more the fact that some people can become well known in a relatively short space of time. Take yourself for example, first I heard of you was when Rick Nunn was taking photos of you getting soaked by a bucket of water – and now 6 months later, I see your name everywhere.
I also enjoyed the relaxed approach you had (have you done much public speaking before?).
Keep up the good work John.
@mrqwest
Thanks mate! I’ve done no public speaking before really, a few panels and workshops, but this was my first “proper” bit of it!
The single fact that sticks with me after seeing your awesome presentation: shit, my name isn’t on slide #5 yet. *Goes off to work harder* :)
Good stuff John, would love to meet your IRL some time, if you’re ever over in NL, give me a shout :)
Hehe, you know if it was a list of “people in WordPress” then you would definitely have been on that list ;)
Heh, I bet I’d be in the top 3 ;) Ow wait, not talking to Chris :D
LMAO! I was going to crack that joke in my original reply, but I held back :D
Given this was your first “proper” speaking gig I think you did an amazing job. It was pacey (bit not too fast), witty (without being trite) and interesting (without being dull). All told a good presentation, despite the truly childish attempts of some audience members to overload Instagram with pictures of you ;)
One bit of feedback, and this is offered sincerely: talk to the audience not the giant screen behind you. Many of the guys did that during the day and it’s one of the core lessons I learned from my time doing similar stuff.
Great stuff and look forward to abusing, sorry seeing you again at another venue soon.
R
Hey mate, thanks so much for the kind words and also the feedback – watching the video back the first thing I noticed was how much time I spent looking at my own slides. It’s hard thing not to do, but definitely something that I’ll be thinking about much more now!
Hi John,
Once again, I gotta give it to you – Bloody top notch stuff! You come across as though you’ve been doing these kind of gigs for years.
There is a ton of stuff to take away from this and as someone who’d like to raise their profile and maybe get into a bit of public speaking at some point your talk was very inspiring!
Thanks so much Hugh, really appreciate it! :)
Thanks John for posting this for others to view, who could not attend.
Just one point which has been on my mind since I’ve viewed it, a couple days ago.
You mention the requirement to have Skill + Network + Personality = Personal Branding. You then go on to say that Everyone can do it! How do you know you have the skill? Is a skill measurable? I understand that the web design/developer field holds so many skills and areas to focus on, and as you say you should be ‘Really good at one thing’, but how do you identify that one skill/thing, sifting through all the others which you may just be ‘kinda good at’? Is there any advice you can give on how to figure out your one good thing please?
Hey Ben, that’s a great question – and interestingly it’s the one thing that most people have picked up on in the last few days. Lots of other people have said “I don’t know what my one skill is” – and I can totally relate to that. I remember being terribly frustrated a couple of years ago, not being able to figure out what to do. I was spreading myself thin trying to learn PHP, Ruby, WordPress, CSS, Javascript and, you know, business! The more I tried to just “pick one” the harder it became. In the end I gave up – and that turned out to be the most productive way to go.
I’ve found that we tend to fight (and second guess) our natural tendencies when it comes to following a path. So ask yourself the question of what work you do most often? What do you most enjoy? What comes most naturally to you? For me the answer was design and WordPress development, but I resisted that path for a long time wondering if there was “something better” that I “should” be doing. In the end, this turned out to be the right path for me.
In short: go with the flow. Your interests will naturally change and develop over time, that’s ok. Just go with it and try not to put to much pressure on yourself :)
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the reply John.
What you said about being frustrated and spreading yourself thin is exactly where I am right now. I’ve so many books, and finished a few of them, and dipped into so many personal projects and trials (XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, WordPress, Tumblr, Photoshop, Illustrator…..wow, more of a list than I realised!), that I’ve become swamped and lost.
Time is always an issue for me, the lack of it, to actually find out what work I do most often, or what I most enjoy. I’ve a strong artistic background, and the thought of designing websites gives me a good feeling inside (only way I can describe it). Problem is (I have a fair few it seems) I don’t think I have the flair. I’ve done a couple recent Illustrator projects, which I ‘think’ are good, but now need to figure out how to tap into that and make it. This needs further investigation :-) Anyways, I digress.
Thank you for the insightful comments, and definite food for thought. I’m sure I’ll get there in the end. Just need to stave off the frustrations whilst figuring out what’s best for me.
Real Honest John
I followed the slider version, internet’s a little slow in South Africa. Great insights into personal branding. I don’t like the swearing but each to his own, I still think you are fantastic.
I must say, this talk really hit the nail on the head for me. Personal branding is something I’ve been working on recently and I think you nailed there at the end. Pretty good for your first talk, look forward to seeing more.