Sleeping with the light off
At Skyscanner we talk a lot about Personal Growth and actively promote this as part of our company culture. We also chat about facing our fears and more importantly to keep asking ourselves “What would we do if we weren’t scared?”
Well, for me, it all started around 4 months ago when I asked my manager, if I could attend a conference. In his usual, relaxed manner, he took a moment to think then asked why I wanted to attend. Having taken him through some of the talk overviews, he seemed very much on his way to agreeing. It was shortly afterwards that he hit me with it.
“How would you feel about speaking at a conference?” he asked.
Yikes! “umm… sure” I replied nervously and frantically trying to think about why on earth people would want to come listen to me, let alone pay for the privilege?
I spent the rest of the week wracking my brain about what I felt people would relate to; what could they learn and take back to their jobs? Nope, nothing was coming to mind.
“Sh*t” I thought. What on earth had I agreed to?
I reached out to a number of conferences in the UK (as well as the one I had originally asked to attend) in a bid to seek out speaker opportunities. There were two common replies, either they already had their programme finalised or they asked for videos / decks of previous talks I had delivered. Unfortunately, I had neither.
I kept sending emails, near and far, and a couple of weeks into my search, UX Scotland got back to me. Like many, they had already finalised their programme of which included a talk from a fellow colleague, David Udvardy. They asked me to come a long to meet them nonetheless and explained they had a sister conference ‘UX Cambridge’ of which might of of interest.
I jumped at the chance. I’d finally found someone willing to give me a chance and so I signed up in an instant. Its worth pointing out that at this point that as excited as I was, I still had no clue about what I was going to talk about. It was all starting to get very real and the fear started to build. I had never done this before — what if I messed up? What if people walked out? What if people slandered me on Twitter? What if I couldn’t answer a question? How on earth was I going to be able to stabilise the nerves whilst delivering a talk that people would engage with?
Having always been a bit of an evangelist of the question “What is the worst that can happen?” I took all these things, and started to put them into context. I was amongst like-minded people with a talk I had practised and a subject matter I felt passionately about. There were no red buzzers and there were certainly no spinning chairs. What really was the worst that could happen? Well, nothing that bad I came to realise.
A couple of thoughts on topics formed of which I ran them passed a few people including the organisers at UX Cambridge. I ditched a couple and merged a few more to form an Experience Report entitled ‘Designing at Scale — Creating a Global User Experience’.
It was then shortly after that I stumbled across a book at the airport “Talk Like Ted”. Today TED talks are viewed more than two million times a day and have become the gold standard in public speaking and presentation skills. I needed as many tips and help as possible and this seemed like a great place to start.
Here is a small extract from the book on the 9 rules of delivering a great TED like talk.
1. Unleash the master within
2. Tell three stories
3. Practice relentlessly
4. Teach your audience something new
5. Deliver jaw-dropping moments
6. Use humour without telling a joke
7. Stick to the 18-minute rule
8. Favour pictures over text
9. Stay in your lane
My talk was ‘Done’, I had practised as much as I could, and it was now time to make my way to UX Cambridge where I was scheduled to follow the first keynote of the conference on Day 1. I took to the stage, took a few deep breaths, and addressed the 60ish UX-ers that had come to hear me speak.
I won’t lie, I was nervous, but also quite excited at the same time. A few minutes in, I realised I was close to about a quarter of the way through my slides — I was speaking too fast! I took a drink from the bottle of water I had been gently squeezing for the last few minutes and reminded myself to slow down and relax. I looked around the room to see all the people taking notes and actively listening to what I was saying. My fears and nerves started to fade.
“I was doing it” I thought to myself, and I could feel myself relax. I was no longer just giving a presentation, I felt I was chatting to a bunch of friends. I finished about 25mins into my 45min slot (not far off the 18 minute rule) and opened up the room to questions. A couple of hands were raised and I did my best to answer and give my thoughts. Then some more hands popped up, and then a few more. Pretty much the whole room was asking questions and I was answering them. It felt great!
I took my last question and headed off to let the next speaker take the stage. I’d done it. I’d bloody done it! And what more I actually enjoyed it. I would never have thought that all those weeks ago when I first started to think about presenting at a conference that I’d be able to contain my nerves, let alone enjoy it.
Afterwards, people kept coming up to me and I was surprised to hear such good feedback. We continued conversations throughout the conference and I came to learn that other people were or had faced similar challenges to those in my talk. From music tycoon, Spotify, and insurance comparison, Compare the Market, to gambling site Paddy Power and even the Government Digital Services, we talked at length and shared our experiences.
If you’d like to checkout my slides, you can find them here.
Without a doubt, it was a great opportunity for Personal Growth, but it also provided a great environment to chat with other Internet Economy businesses and has provided lots of food for thought for things going forward.
So don’t be afraid of the dark, try sleeping with the light off. After all, what is the worst that could happen?
