Women Developers Academy: Week 3 day 2

Today we have Majid Hajian to talk about how we can market ourselves as contributors.

As some other mentors/speakers have already mentioned, we have to focus on the audience — can we offer something to the attendees? Can they learn something from me? — Also when talking, focus on what they get, not what you have, for example: ‘In this talk, you will learn how…’ rather than ‘In this talk, I will tell you how…’

In our talks, it is great to be specific, but succinct, using active words — avoid the usage of passive sentences whenever possible. When thinking about the title, try to make it short and engaging, letting the audience know what’s the value of attending your session. Another good tip is to consider the audience when choosing the title — are they a highly technical audience or a non-technical audience?

Then we did a 3-minutes workshop to apply what we had learned by then.

Regarding the talk proposal, ask yourself the following questions:

• What problem you are trying to solve?
• What is the outcome?
• What are you using to enable what?
• Is there an interesting/ practical use case?
• What are the key takeaways from your session?
• What audience is your talk targeting?

Once you have your talk proposal prepared, it is a great idea to have it reviewed by someone else to look for grammar errors or typos, for example.

Then, we had some more practice with some proposal examples in which we had to find some problematic points like not going straight to the point or not focusing enough on the audience, among others.

So, what can we do after we have a good proposal with a good title? Some advanced tips are the following:

• Submit multiple proposals. Don’t bet all your cards on a single hand.
• Be unique. For example, having some demo/hands-on after the theoretical part.
• Ask the organizers. If you have questions about your proposal, ask them and they will answer!
• Learn to handle rejections. Your talk won’t always be accepted, but it’s not about you.

Another key point to proposals/talks is the biography. To write a compelling bio it is a good idea to write about who you are: the roles you’ve had on your team/organization/projects, the skills you know, the strengths you have, the experiences you’ve lived, and what your values are. If you can’t not only tell but also show, it is way better. Pro tip: have a long and a short version of your bio. When creating your bio, this could be helpful:

• I work at/do __________
• I’ve been a __________ for ____ years
• recently, I _________
• I organize ________
• I build/I’ve built ______
• I lead/I’ve led ________
• In my spare time, I ________
• I’m obsessed with/have a passion for _____
• What’s unique about me is ________

And the last part of the bio: a profile photo. Have a clear photo, your face should not be cut (show your whole face), smile, preferably a professional photo rather than a selfie.

Finally, when being a speaker, you have to market yourself as one. Yout main tools will be social media like LinkedIn or Twitter, your tech repository (Website, GitHub, Medium), and past talks — it is a good idea to keep track of your speaking engagements and even have video recordings whenever possible. Some other good ways to create connections and let people know you are:

• Offer to support the event as a volunteer
• Offer to connect with potential sponsors
• Offer to promote the event
• Offer a secondary deep-dive or hands-on workshop
• Recommend other speakers
• Stay to mingle and network