Come Hear Me Speak at Potluck! (A Smorgasbord of Ideas)

On Wednesday, May 21st, I’ll be participating in Potluck! (A Smorgasbord of Ideas). I’ll be joining an interesting group of presenters, as we all give our own rapidfire presentations (6 minutes) on topics near and dear to us.

I kind of lucked into this gig, as I met Saya Hillman at the last 20×2 Chicago event (where we were both presenters on the topic “Where Are We?”).

One part of Saya’s talk that day really stuck with me – involving her creating a “Hire me to speak” page on her web site, shortly after being let go from her job. On hearing that she did this, I thought to myself Man, that sounds like a fun idea. I should try to do that.

Lo and behold, the day after the event – I got an email invitation from Saya to participate in Potluck!

Normally, I like to have a good deal of preparation time before speaking – particularly if I’m doing something new, from scratch. The timeline for this event though, was much shorter. After hesitating a bit (and taking a cue from Saya’s philosophy of saying yes), I decided to just dive in. I’ve been prepping (making notes, revising and editing) ever since.

It’s funny how, previously, I was working with a constraint of staying under 2 minutes. But now with 6, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

A few weeks ago I was worried about coming up wtih enough content to fill the time. After a few practice runs, I’ve realized six minutes is absolutely no time at all. Tell a semi-long story, and you’ve chewed up 90 seconds!

Lots more revising to do. The timeline makes me nervous, but I’ve crested the hill where what I’m left with is refining and paring down.

I’m really excited to be participating, and I think it’s going to be a really fun time – you should come by! You can purchase tickets for Potluck! (A Smorgasbord of Ideas) at the Mac & Cheese Productions web site.

Related:
Felix Jung, Pecha Kucha Chicago: Repetition and Variation
Guide to Making a Pecha Kucha Presentation: Videos