So, you're thinking you might wanna start getting your name and voice out there in your community. This guide should help solidify why it's worthwhile, where you might wanna do it, and how.

<aside> 💡 This is summarised from an awesome panel event from WNB.rb, who incidentally are an amazing (Ruby) community to start speaking at for women and non-binary folk. They offer as much guidance as you'd like, in a really supportive environment. The panel speakers were: Kerstin Puschke (she/her), Shopify Sylvia Fronczak (she/her), Shopify Gabi Stefanini (she/her), Shopify Moderated by Jemma Issroff, WNB.rb

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Why do a talk?

• Firstly, it's really frickin exciting. Public speaking might be nerve-wracking, but the rush you get is quite unlike any other.
• It can totally transform your conference / meetup experience. Forget the fear of mingling with people, they'll be approaching you to ask about your talk. Get ready for your network to grow exponentially.
• You'll learn so much more about a topic than you might have otherwise, as you dig into things so deeply.
• If you have an idea but are struggling with how to use it, speaking about it can help to distill the idea and gives you ample time to formulate and think things through.
• Make your work and unique perspective more visible outside of Cleo.
• Recycle! You can present the same talk to your team, the company, a meetup, a conference. You can also adapt the same talk for different contexts, make a longer one a lightning talk or vice versa.

Choosing your topic

Firstly, you do NOT need to be an expert on something to deliver a talk. By the time you deliver the talk, you will be an expert ;)  that’s kinda the point.

Secondly, don't make the mistake of thinking that what you’re working on isn’t particularly interesting because you’ve been in it for a while. Everything is easy and obvious when you’re doing it, but think about a time before you understood it. People working in a different environment, whether that's in terms of sector, company size, or team culture, will have a different perspective from you, and will find yours interesting.

Sources of inspiration:

• What talk have you heard that inspired you, or that you had a different opinion on?
• What would you have liked to have learned through a talk? This is a chance to give that chance to your community.
• What's something that you want to learn more about about? Your talk can be about your learning process.
• Find inspiration from strange places, book titles is a good place to start! Be goofy and have fun with it.