One of the goals I’ve been working on is to try and get out of my comfort zone a bit and start doing some public speaking. Being up in front of people is not overly fun for me, but I do see the good of doing it.
One area where I can see me potentially able to help people is by talking about WordPress. By no means do I know everything about WordPress, but I do have a pretty strong understanding of how it works, and I help people use it as my job as a Happiness Engineer. So far I’ve done two presentations on the topic. One I wrote about before where I did a WordPress.com 101 for a university business class. Last night I did one at a local meetup for Refresh Annapolis Valley. WordPress is a pretty popular topic because there was likely more people out last night than I have seen before.
My idea was to give an intro to WordPress and show people the basics of getting started. While preparing I went through creating so many slides with screenshots and taking people through the process of setting up WordPress and then working with it. Near the end I scrapped most of it and decided to go against a lot of the advice I had received and do a live demo instead. It still feels like the right move to really give people a feel for how to work through the WordPress dashboard but almost immediately backfired on me.
The talk took place on the same university campus and the guest internet connection is pretty locked down so I couldn’t load one of the pages needed to do the demo because it ran on a different port which was blocked on the connection. Thankfully the organizer fired up the hot spot on his phone and I connected to it and went through.
My intention was to record my screen so I could share it after, but once up there nerves took over and I completely forgot to start it.
One of the things I mentioned in my talk was the mission of WordPress which is as follows:
To democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.
One of people who has given me the motivation to start presenting in public is a team mate Mahangu Weerasinghe. Each year our company gets together and one of the things we do is each person has to do a flash talk while there. It is just a short, up to four minutes, presentation on anything you would like. His inspired me greatly and today an article about his story was published that is both inspiring itself and goes to the mission of WordPress. I encourage you to give it a read. http://heropress.com/essays/breaking-the-silence/
I’m sharing my flash talk below which is certainly less inspirational, but it shows how nervous I am in front of people I think and was my first time up in front of a group of people in a long time.
Sandy McFadden 
This looks a lot like our Doner Kebabs, Sandy. Usually eaten after an evening drinking beer!
LikeLike
You’re right Pat, they do come from the same origins I believe. After a night out is a very common time to grab a donair here as well!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoyed this post, Sandy!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Ellie. Your daughter have lots of good advice. I should listened more to her though :-p
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice job Sandy! Made me hungry. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Come visit I’ll buy you one!
LikeLike
I think it was a good move to go with a live demo as opposed to slides with screenshots.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I agree it was the best way to go. I should have used a local install to do it though so I didn’t have to worry about Internet. A wise person gave me that suggestion. I should have talked to them first 🙂
LikeLike
BTW, forgot to say I’d be *happy* to eat N.S.’s donair, since I’m not a seafood person. If ever I head east, I’ll give you a shout! 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Sandy your willing heart to educate and advocate as a public speaker! Its like creating for yourself the opportunity, and making it happen. Its so KOOL.. yeah! I truly enjoyed your Live Demo though it might be daunting to follow through on the spot. Its nice thoughtful of you to plan for a “screen record”, but “forgotten”. So, i Wonder if you may consider doing a similar “screen record” on your own, and publish it on your blog, as well as Refresh Annapolis Valley facebook page. Deeply appreciated, many, many thanks!
LikeLike
Hi Bee! Thanks for coming out and the support. Not sure I will still do the recording, without the context of the presentation not sure how useful it would be. Plus there are lots of other great video tutorials out there.
One of the hosts I recommended BlueHost has a good series that would likely be more useful for everyone: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_9u00nsHteH2OBVX4YSU_HWWY_JSxFyj
LikeLike
You should try kapsalon. Mix donair and fries in a bowl. Put some Gouda cheese on top of it and let it melt in the oven. When the cheese has melted put some salad (lettuce, onions, cucumber, tomato) on top of it and add some garlic sauce and sambal (Indonesian hot sauce, but any other will do fine). Bon appetit!
It’s quit a popular fast food dish here in the Netherlands.
Image: https://cldup.com/Gfk1ZM7aL0.jpg
LikeLiked by 1 person