On Friday morning I woke up with the thought: “Today I will be giving my first ever presentations at a conference.” From that point on I found myself surprisingly nervous, despite trying to remind myself that I give talks in lecture theatres and teach groups of students and lecturers all the time. Before that I’d managed to not let myself think about this first, but come the day of the event I guess I could no longer ignore the fact.
It was quite difficult sitting through the day’s keynote speech but I made myself concentrate (and distracted myself taking notes) on Neil McClellands’s speech. He is the chairman of the UK’s National Literacy Trust, and talked about his work with libraries (and other organisations) “to build a literate nation”. (I won’t go into detail on his speech here, I am going to blog the details of keynotes and presentations on the blog the conf blog.)
About fifteen minutes before my session was due to begin I went to the presentation room and made sure I knew where the microphone was on the podium, looked at the speakers’ seating and made sure the AV guy had my PowerPoint. At this point the other two speakers were there too, doing the same thing, and it made me feel a bit better that they were nervous too.
Once the room filled things happened very quickly. The chair of my session stumbled over my surname, despite having asked me the correct way to say it beforehand (I felt bad, I shouldn’t have told her the correct, tongue-twisting-for-English-speakers way of saying it).
I started off by thanking everyone for coming and admitted that I’d had a recurring nightmare all week that I’d be speaking to an empty room. I wasn’t making this up – I guess my subconscious had been nervous about the talks all week – but I was too superstitious to mention it here in case I jinxed myself in some way… I don’t know if you’re supposed to start off a talk by admitting to fears but it relaxed me a bit and people laughed so I guess it didn’t do too much harm.
Both talks went reasonably well, I think. It was a little tough having to just start the second presentation almost immediately after doing the first, but I managed. I kept to time and covered what I wanted to say (although I could have quite happily gone on and on and on, especially talking about blogging, which I love), and even had a few people ask questions after each talk.
The Uber Boss sat through both my talks and I saw quite a few other people I knew in the audience as well, which I actually found reassuring. Afterwards, having people come up to say they’d enjoyed listening to me was both gratifying and slightly embarrassing – thanks for all your kind words 🙂
*That photo of the room is a bit of a cheat – it wasn’t taken on the day of my talks, but it is of the same room I presented in.
8 Comments
Glad your prezos went well. Wish i could’ve been there even though i’m not a librarian!
Would’ve loved to have been there! Glad they went well. It’s surprising how nervous you get even when you present frequently. There is something about presenting to fellow colleagues that is infinitely worse than a bunch of students who you usually know more than them.
thanks for the talks on wikis and blogs! if i hadn’t read your post, i wouldn’t have known you were nervous 🙂
Thanks, jl! I wish you could’ve been there too!
Cheers Penny! Are you going to the forthcoming LIANZA conference? I’d love to go but I don’t think my budget will stretch that far :/ As for talking to a bunch of colleagues, you are right!
You’re welcome, sardonicsmile! Now I wish the link to your profile was working, so I can check out your blog… darn Blogger Beta!
Hey Con, I posted a long comment here this morning and blogger beta sucked it away. My blogger login and my gmail login are the same, with different passwords and blogger beta gets grumpy if I login using my blogger ID – lets me log in then pretends to post stuff, but doesn’t.
Anyhow…I wanted to congratulate you and mention that from the conference blogs, it looks as though people were educated and inspired by your talks.
I also asked oodles of questions like: “Were people as enthusiastic about wikis as about blogs?”, “what were some of the questions at the end of the session?, “What were people asking privately afterward?”, “Did people wander in and out of the session like they did with the others and was that disconcerting?”. “Did they seem to “get” what blogs and wikis were all about?”.
Thanks, K 🙂
In response:
“Were people as enthusiastic about wikis as about blogs?” It’s hard to say, really. Quite a few people came up to say they were thinking of, or had just started, using wikis at their workplaces. Someone said that he’d always thought of blogs as “puerile” (I used a great quote dissing blogs), but he might have to revise his opinion…
“what were some of the questions at the end of the session?” Someone asked about indexes of blogs (typical librarian!) – I was pleased to be able to say that there are a couple, including our very own Perth-based AustralianBlogs.com.au.. I can’t remember what else they asked!!
“What were people asking privately afterward?”
How do you find blogs? What are your favourite blogs? Where is your personal blog? Again, it’s a bit of a blur and I can’t remember all the questions…
“Did people wander in and out of the session like they did with the others and was that disconcerting?”
I don’t find that sort of thing too disconcerting – I expect it in these sorts of sessions.
“Did they seem to “get” what blogs and wikis were all about?”
I think so! Now I hope people start blogging 🙂
you can try sardonicsmile.com/r (,) i think i must’ve done something weird to my blogger account. hehheh!
Thanks, sardonicsmile 🙂 Pity we didn’t meet at the conference!