Almost a year ago, I saw something on twitter about this group called Supermonday that had started up in Newcastle, so being the curious sort, I did a bit of googling, signed myself up and went along to the next meeting.
The event at Newcastle Uni, was a debate on various web development platforms, and while a little techie in parts (for a none developer) was somehow informative and informal at the same time.
Since then I have attended the majority of supermonday events, and got to know many of the people that come along regularly to the meetings, made some very useful contacts, gained a far broader understanding of some of the latest technologies being used and o had lots of fun in the process.
A few months ago, I decided that these sort of things are as much about sharing, as they are about learning, and that i really should signed up to do a talk, at some point. The main question was, what could I possibly share with a mainly techy audience many of whom would know far more than i did on any given subject. Sure i run an occasional class on social networking , but this was normally aimed at people that were quite new to technology. In the end after discussing this with Ross Cooney, i came up with covering how i project managed development of the BALTIC online shop and why we chose to develop this from the ground up rather than using a packaged product.
In someways I was very lucky with timing, getting to do my talk in the somewhat cosy environment of the Side Gallery’s cinema space on the quayside, with sligtly smaller audience than usual of around 50.
It had been a few years since i’d done this kind of presentation, but the talk seemed to go fairly well (i didn’t get booed off the stage and i didn’t hear much snoring, so i guess i was Ok). A few people asked questions at the end and a few people came up to me afterwards and said they’d enjoyed it, which is always good.
On the whole I feel I got quite a lot out of the experience, of course at first the idea of public speaking can seem a little scary, but it is also something that you get better at the more you get up and do and its a useful skill to have.
If there is something that you feel you could speak about that maybe of interest i’d certainly recommend giving it a go.
Following my talk there was an interesting discussion on version control and the advantages of git versus subversionbetween Paul Callaghan and Alex Kavanagh.
