03 December 2014
Last night I attended the Girl Develop It (Philly) holiday party and gave a quick talk. I have been incredibly anxious to meet everyone that is part of this particular chapter, as they seemed especially active and welcoming. I have also been making an effort to ease into the terrifying world of public speaking so this event seemed completely perfect and I couldn’t sign up for it fast enough.
It was really neat to get involved in a local tech community again. I participated in events with the GDI Seattle chapter before making the 3,000 mile move and missed it terribly. The organization does an amazing job at making women feel empowered, comfortable, and safe. Almost all the women I am in awe of and are worthy of a “hero” status I have met through GDI.
The theme for the party was a “show and tell” where speakers for the night would present a quick talk on something she accomplished this year that she was especially proud of. I decided to focus my presentation on the idea of teaching as you learn things and how that led to writing and publishing Pocket Guide to Writing SVG.
Concerning a “format”, the mini talk starts out addressing the idea that students make the best teachers so you should always teach and write as you learn everything. Beginners remember the struggle. You remember exactly what tripped you up because it probably kept you up all night. So write that. Write that is was hard and how you made sense of it. I’m learning that web development comes easily to almost no one, so someone out there will definitely appreciate your interpretation of a solution.
Don’t be afraid to be wrong. I found the idea of publishing anything to be completely crippling when I first got started. “What if I write about something and I’m wrong?! I can’t do it.” The truth is if you are wrong, it’s not that bad. Hopefully someone corrects you and you now know the right way and have started a discussion about the topic…how cool is that? If you are afraid to be wrong you will never be able to move forward.
I then talked about how this led to writing and publishing my book with the help of Kickstarter and the recent decision to open source the book’s content.
The slides from the talk are available here for those interested. If you attended the party and did not receive a discount code for the free PDF of the book or forgot to grab a fresh to death SVG tote just reach out to me on Twitter!
ALSO, I recently learned that you can add Girl Develop It to your Amazon Smile account so that they receive a donation with every purchase you make! <3
