This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at PodCamp Toronto. For those who may not know, PodCamp Toronto is organized as an unconference. A conference is a place/event you would go to to attend sessions. An unconference is organized by the attendees. And sessions are led. Which means I didn’t really give a talk. I facilitated a session would be a better way of putting it.
PodCamp Toronto is a 2 day event which brings together podcasting and social media enthusiasts in an effort to learn from each other and connect with new and old acquaintances.
I attended some really interesting sessions and made a load of new friends. In fact, the best time was connecting with new and not so new friends at a greasy spoon on Saturday evening. I even managed to get invited and go see a Toronto Raptors game. And this by someone I never even knew 8 hours earlier! Amazing!
However, I wanted to share some lessons I learned myself. And these lessons were learned by facilitating my session. Although I have had the opportunity to speak in private functions, this was really my first public talk. And boy, did I learn a lot:
- Have multiple slides per argument. People seem to love their power points!
- Don’t repeat yourself. I don’t like over-preparing for presentations but I think I should start.
- Always invite your fans. It’s always good to have supporters in the crowd.
- Don’t be afraid to be real. People appreciate honesty and abhor people who are fake.
- Involve the crowd. An active crowd is a happy crowd.
- Wear a loud shirt.
- Create a hashtag (#) on Twitter to connect with everyone who attended the session. Mine was #loudshirt. (Obvious, eh!)
A special thanks to @coleyeung and @zeppelinsocial for the pics! Video will follow soon.