Paneled!

I spent last weekend at ConFusion in Detroit. This was one of the first conventions I ever went to, before I took a several-years break from going to any conventions, and I still like it.

This year, there was a big difference: I was on programming, which was a lot of fun. I had thought I would be nervous, but I wasn’t, at all. Which was very weird–I joined Toastmasters to get over my fear of speaking in front of people, but I didn’t expect it to work so well. I think it helped that the audiences were not huge and there were always several other people up there with me.

I’ve never been good at shoving my words into a conversation or meeting. Half the time I open my mouth to speak someone else jumps in (at times this is frustrating). I left a lot of things unsaid. That’s just something that takes practice.

Another useful skill would be the ability to steer the conversation towards the direction I had prepared for, rather than having it go off in other directions hat I didn’t have as much to say about. That’s even harder to practice, but I’ll have to figure it out. I’d like to do this again, and I’d like to be good at it.