Friday night was for talks and Lightning Talks. It was pretty quick, 7-8:30 or so, but a great way to meet some of my fellow attendees and kick off the good vibes for the evening. Props to the organisers who required all of the lightning talk presenters to send their slides in a couple hours before tonight started - that extra bit of planning made the evening so much smoother.
Build Your Community to Build Your Career, by Eleanor Whitney
- Understand what you have can bring to the table. You have skills and a history other people are interested in - which skills? what stories? How can you best share these?
- Community is part of your intellectual property (not sure I agree with this, but interesting idea)
- Scared of joining communities? Be human - you’re not alone. (Sounds like my “You’re not a snowflake”)
- Feel free to ask for help from your community, but be sure to help other members as well.
5 Ways to Increase Your Influence, by Elizabeth Brown
- Reciprocity - if you help someone they’re more likely to help you in the future
- Liking principle - people want to help people they like
- Ben Franklin Effect - getting a rejection, probably means you’ll get a yes from them in the future.
- Scarcity - make it clear that you’re not permanently available
- Body language - project confidence
More information from Influence: science and practice.
Angry Black Woman, by Brittany Canty
- Holding back your emotions doesn’t always help; other people need to see how what they’re saying actual impacts you.
- It takes a lot of effort and energy to hold yourself back, instead use the energy for something better.
5 Stages of Accepting Negative Feedback, by Jessica Hall
- Denial - there’s no way that’s true.
- Anger - why don’t they get it?
- Consideration - maybe they’ve got a point, or we were wrong; is there a pattern or was it a once off?
- Panic - how do you actually improve? How do you improve fast enough?
- Excitement - yay! You know more, and things can get better!
Seek out negative feedback, and thank the people who have the courage to give it to you.
Scope Creep: Keep It From Creeping Up On You, by Angelina Simms
- We usually only think of scope creep as applying to software. But sometimes life creeps up on you.
- What systems do you have in place to manage scope creep in your life?
- Set things up to deal with life's scope creep before things come up.
Shaving my head made me a better programmer, by Alex Qin
- Being asked at university “Are you a programmer?” and replying “Well, not really, but I’m trying to become one.” Realising that this doesn’t make sense because “the act of programming makes you a programmer.”
- “Become a bad ass programmer and they can’t doubt your programming abilities.” - Alex went for it, and started giving lots of talks and putting her ideas out there.
- Screw it - shaved her hair and boom community members and coworkers started treating her as a legit programmer
- Wanted to help others who “shouldn’t be programmers,” founded Coalition for Queens
- Anyone can succeed if they have the right resources, and people believe in them
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