Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

I've not done nearly as many conference talks as many people here (I do about one a year) but just for entertainment here is how it usually goes for me:

1. Come up with a proposal, send it out to as many conferences as I can find.

2. Wait.

3. Most reject it. Some times (often, actually) all of them reject it. Go back to step 1 (You lose 3 or 4 months when you are waiting, not knowing if any will accept your proposal).

4. If one of them accepted, be overjoyed!

5. Tell myself I'll start working on the talk super early so I'm extra prepared.

6. Actually not start until 1 to 1 and a half months before the conference.

7. Be super stressed. Not get anything else meaningful done.

8. Day of the talk I am angry at myself for agreeing to do it when I get little out of it.

9. Do the talk, it goes way better than I expected! I didn't totally embarrass myself and people seemed engaged.

10. It's over! Oh my god, it's over! Thinking of all of the things I can get done now, I'm never giving another talk and putting myself through that again.

11. 3 or 4 months pass and I see people I know are giving talks and I get the itch to do it myself again... back to step 1.

> 3. Most reject it. Some times (often, actually) all of them reject it. Go back to step 1

This is one of the biggest reasons I started https://GroupBy.org.

I speak at a lot of conferences, and I was frustrated with the mystery of the abstract review process. I wanted anybody to be able to submit on any topic, at any time, and then get peer review from other speakers and attendees.

The abstract submission process is totally open - it's just a WordPress blog where folks can submit comments and talk directly to the presenters out in the open.

It really helps speakers understand why their abstracts aren't resonating, and how they can tweak their abstracts to improve.

I sometimes get a feeling that some speakers due to their history get invited to give talks over and over.

There are only a few respected conferences where you get to see new faces. The rest usually cycle through their top speakers.

The worst is when you have the same white 5 males talking about diversity.

> I sometimes get a feeling that some speakers due to their history get invited to give talks over and over.

Running a conference is a financial risk. You have to bring in enough attendees to ensure that you'll break even on costs. Because of that, organizers often bring in presenters with a known reputation for putting butts in seats.

To break into the circuit, find a conference with lower financial risks. For example, in the Microsoft database space, that's SQLSaturday, a free regional conference typically held at colleges. Those organizers don't have a lot of money on the line, so they can work on promoting their local speakers.

Even better, speak at local user groups and build up a reputation.

Not saying you're wrong, but I've done 6 conferences and the 6th wasn't any easier for me to get than the 1st.

I think his point wasn't that doing conferences makes it easier to do more conferences, but that doing a big, headlining conference, and doing a great job, makes it easier to do that conference again another year.

>bring in presenters with a known reputation for putting butts in seats

And, whether or not they're a direct draw, a reputation for giving good talks, not giving a sales pitch, not flaking out at the last minute, etc.

For better or worse, it's just a lot safer for conference organizers to accept talks from known quantities. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for unknown quantities to break in and (often) means that there is less variety of topics and perspectives than might otherwise be the case.

Building up a portfolio at user groups and other local events helps to some degree--especially if you've never spoken before. However, in my experience, just about every conference at its in crowd.

In my case, there are some conferences where I get accepted to speak regularly, some where I have a middle of the road batting average, and some where I mostly don't even bother to put in proposals any longer. And it's got very little to do with the topic area or the prestige/popularity of the event.

let's hate on these white people who decided to work on diversity because they saw none around them.

That's not what the poster said, you sound defensive. They just said it's disappointing. Also if you are in change of putting together a panel on diversity and all you can come up with is white men, then maybe you need to grow your network and reconsider your approach.

They didn't say it was disappointing. They said it was "the worst" to have white males talk about diversity. Is the implication anything other than "your gender and the color of your skin make your opinions on this topic worth [less|nothing]"? I don't see how it could be.

Personally if I'm going to a tech conference I want to hear about tech, not about HR. But if you want to have talks on diversity it makes sense the speakers on that topic would be largely representative of speakers generally, which is mostly white males.

"The worst is when you have the same white 5 males talking about diversity."

That's what they said. In the context of talking about seeing the same speakers at conferences over and over.

The context is that the GP doesn't feel white men are qualified to speak on diversity.

Agree to disagree.

I deeply care about diversity. It makes me glad to see different kinds of people from all over the world with different opinions, ages and upbringing at conferences.

Google i/o had plenty of female speakers giving deep tech talks. That's awesome. Yest SpaceX host was an African American woman talking about rocket boosters. That's awesome.

The reason I say this is while I was growing up society told me unconsciously that only white males can truly male it in tech.

That's not true and you don't want to send that message unconsciously. It creates a cycle where people self select themselves into careers based on kind of people they see being celebrated as heroes.

This is roughly my cycle. I'm finding that step 10 gets stronger and stronger. After my first talk there was no noticeable step 10. Several years and many talks later, I'm currently in step 10 and I think I might really never get to step 11 again.

So what are some reasons to do any of this? Sounds unpleasant.

Does it really increase your salary or your network that much?

Being seen as an "expert" in your field does positively affect your salary and giving talks is one way to help there. To what extent it helps I'm not sure. But that's not really the reason why I do it. I do it mostly because of ego. I see people tweeting about giving a talk at X convention and I feel like I should have that status.

As jrauser said, though, the more I do them the less inclination I have, as it really does negatively effect my ability to achieve other goals. And the older I get the other projects become more important to me.

Even more than affecting my ability to achieve other goals, I think it might actually affect my health. After my last talk I tweeted[1]:

"In the days before my recent talk, my resting heart rate was ~50bpm. The morning after, it's ~45bpm. Be kind to your speakers, folks."

Long term low-level stress is pretty bad for you.

[1] https://twitter.com/jrauser/status/867055469700849664

As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, I write talks mainly because I want the finished talk to exist in the world. I think this is the same relationship an artist has with their art.

That said, having given some memorable talks[1] at high-profile conferences probably has helped my career more than a little bit.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv3BG8BSXbeFNfR2Zk4n8...

Speaking at a conference vastly increases its usefulness, especially if you get a slot on the first day, as people will then come to you for the rest of the conference to talk about stuff. It takes a bit of work up front (although - are there really people who rehearse for hours, apart from TED style performance-talks?) but it makes the conference itself easy cruising, and you get information and energy from it you never get when you're just listening to speakers and having to go 'hey, so who do you work for' a few dozen times over coffee breaks.

Yes to both.

But that's not why I do it. It may sound trite, but I really do want to help others get better at stuff, and if I have something cool to share that I'm excited about, I'll go out there and share it.

If I help just one person in the room, that's a victory to me.

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