10 years of Speaking + Conferences

You're listening to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out there. Strap yourself in and get ready. Here is Scott Talinski and Wes Boss.

Welcome to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out there. Today, we've got a episode on conferences and getting into speaking. And how do you do it? And why would you wanna do it? What are the benefits and Everything that goes along with that, I was reminded by, Facebook.

Don't like Facebook a whole lot, rid. But, every now and then, it reminds you of, like, something that happened 10 years ago.

And it was like I was at a conference 10 years ago showing a webcam demo, And I was like, man, 10 years unreal. Like, it seems like Webcam access has been in the browser for 10 years.

Rid. And, so I thought, like, wow. Wouldn't shouldn't we do, like, an episode on speaking? Because I've been I've been doing conferences for 10 years now, and I feel like I've learned a thing or two.

Scott, you've been doing,

speaking as well. I'm not sure for how long, but quite a while, haven't you? Yeah. Only about, like, 4 years or so. So just about the time when we started Syntax. Oh, yeah. I but I did do, you know, 2,000

rid YouTube videos. So that's a form of speaking, I suppose. No kidding. No kidding. It's probably, got in front of a lot more people than than I did, so that's impressive.

Rid. So, yeah, we're gonna talk about speaking in conferences today. We are sponsored by 3 awesome companies, Linode, Cloud Computing, that developers Trust Sentry error exception, performance tracking, and FreshBooks cloud accounting. Talk about all of them partly through the episode.

How are you doing today, mister Talinski?

I'm doing great, man. The,

Colorado Avalanche or Stanley Cup champions. So that was a lot of fun last night. Yeah. That must have been so exciting. Were you? Rid. Because I saw that, and I was like, that's exciting for Scott. And, like, that was my team when I was a kid. Like, growing up in Canada, like, I didn't give 2 craps about, rid. About sports. But, like, as a kid growing up in Canada, you kinda have to, like, at least pretend to care about it. Yeah. So, like, I asked rid. For Jersey for Christmas, and I got an avalanche jersey. So, like, that was my team growing up just because I got the I got it. And I had, like, a avalanche calendar Where every every month was a new, like, hockey player. It was hilarious.

Nice. You know what? It's it's hard for me because I grew up in, You know, Southeast Michigan and, the avalanche in Detroit. Rivalry was, like, pretty pretty heavy. Oh. And interesting. They were our biggest rival, the avalanche.

And so then when we moved to Denver, Courtney was like, I'm never gonna root for the avalanche. But sure enough, here we are, several years later, and we're like, yeah. Go Denver. We got to go.

It was exciting to see them win.

This they're it's a fun team. So, like, you know, if you if you're if you want a team to win or you're apathetic rid. At least having a fun team win is always, like, a good thing because then it makes the everybody kinda copies them, and everybody tries to do the more fun aspects of it. I don't know. So it was it was it was great. It was a lot of fun, and we watched, like, the last few games from our hotel room in LEGOLAND. We were just back from LEGOLAND in San Diego, and, man, that was that was a trip. That was really cool. There's a lot of really neat things about LEGOLAND. Let me tell you. It is really neat, and you could tell that some things were a little long in the tooth. They'd been there for, you know, 20 years or so, but other things were, like, really, really interesting. There were some nice, like, dynamic kind of Sensors in places and interesting kinda IoT stuff going on. So, you know, I I thought it was a really, really great place, especially for kids Our age. If they were like, if Landon was, like, 3 years older, then he might have been even getting out of some of the rides, But he could ride every single ride there, and Brooklyn could even get on a roller coaster, and she's 3 years old. So, you know, it it was the perfect, I think, rid. Time for us to go, and it was it was a blast. It was a really great time. That's awesome.

Look look super fun.

All right. Well, let's let's get on into it.

So we had Swix on a couple a couple episodes ago, and he said something and I wrote it rid down for this episode. So I thought it would be good. He says, get paid to speak and write, and you'll grow your following as well as get paid for your job.

I thought that was a a a really good way to put it because rid. Speaking is kind of this interesting aspect of our industry where not everybody does it, but there's a good portion of the industry that goes to conferences, and then there's a subset of that industry that speaks at conferences about, what they've learned, what they've rid. Done. New technologies, how things work.

And I've been doing it for 10 years now. And I thought, like, it's been one of the biggest boosts to my career, rid out there. It's been such a game changer for like like a life changer, really. Like, if I think about Yeah. The jobs and whatnot. So let's get into the 1st section here, which is, like, why would you want to speak at a conference? I think the first one I think this is a word I took from you. It's a legitimizer.

Is that word that you made up?

Rid I use it all time. I let me tell you the history of legitimizer.

The word legitimizer, It comes from a, from one of the b boys in my crew, this guy, John Zhu, who, he he's one of the guys that I founded The my crew with and he's been a friend of mine for a really long time. But breaking battles are really like b boy, and it's like a break dancing for those of you who don't know. So breaking battles, They're really strategic. It's like it looks like sports games. You have to be, like, very, very, on top of exactly what you're doing on your strategy. Who goes win, you know, whatever. It can make or break whether or not you you ultimately win the competition.

And so so We would design our our sets or our routines or anything like that, and he just one day was like, You gotta have a legitimizer. There's no legitimizer in here. And, like, what was that? Like, he he just, like, came up with that word in, like, one of those, like, evening ideas where it was like, You need something that is a hook that latches people on to whatever you're doing that makes the rest of it like, it doesn't matter what you do in the rest of your thing as long as you have 1 legitimizer that makes the judges say, oh, yeah. This guy's got it. This guy knows what he's doing. And so So true. Legitivisor is, like, one of my favorite words. I I've been using it ever since then. I mean, that was, like, 2004 or something. I use it all the time. Like, it makes you seem legitimate.

So if you are trying to break into an industry and you are able to get up in front of a couple 100 people and speak about something With some sort of competence, then you you puts it puts you on the map to say, okay. This person must know at least what they're talking about a little bit. Rid. And for me, that was very early on in my career. I went and spoke about webcam stuff. And and out of that, I just got, like, tons of like, let's go to the next one. It helps you speak rid. Speak really well. Here I am 10 years later. I have an entire business that's founded on yamming my mouth into a microphone and rid how technology works.

I have here. It's it helps you speak good. The third one here is you meet the right people. So that rid. That one was a huge one for me is that I went to this conference.

And out of that conference, I got, several, rid. Like, I was freelance at the time. Several well paying jobs I got out of that.

You just basically are having beer with people walking around. Hey. What's up? What's up? What do you do? What kind of stuff are you into? Asking questions here or there. And a lot of times that will lead to it's not like like

Networking per se. It it yeah. It is networking. Right? It's network. But Yeah. It doesn't seem as cheesy as I think. Not the, like, business conference kind of networking. I mean, you're just going in in talking shop with about something that you you make love. You know? I mean, we both love web developments. Definitely, We we really enjoy talking about it to the point where, man, socially, it's it's something that I like to do. I like to talk about code stuff. I had a buddy over last night to watch the hockey game, and he's a developer. And and sure enough, it's like, we're talking web stuff. It's it's Yeah. It's so it's so weird to think that, like, oh, man, you wanna talk about work, then you don't have to want to do that kind of thing. But I I honestly, personally, me, I just It just like it. I feel very fortunate that I enjoy

this so much because I know a lot of people like, this doesn't have to be a passion of your entire life. It could just be a job, and that's okay. But I'm very fortunate that it is something that I love to talk about even when I'm not on the clock. So, rid. Meeting the right people. I've gotten tons and tons of well paying jobs, lots of connections, lots of really good people. This person refers you to this person. This person refers you to this person.

Next on here, we have you get to travel for free. That is the one of the biggest benefits to me is that you get to go to all of these different places. And at the very least, the rid. Conference is gonna cover a hotel for 1 or 2, maybe 3 nights, and they're gonna give you a flight there and back. And rid. It's certainly still you have to pay out of pocket. Like last conference we went to, I was just like, man, like, I spent 100 of dollars on rid. Taxis to get to and from the airport and buying a $12 crappy bagel at the airport. And it's definitely still 100 of dollars out of your own pocket, especially if you don't have a company that's, like, comping any of that stuff.

But the travel for free is pretty sweet.

Sometimes these conferences will give you an honorarium or they'll pay you to to do that. You have to be a little bit careful around If you are getting paid because then you are dealing with visas and everything like that, if you're crossing borders, but they can sometimes pay you.

A lot of people have very strong opinions about if you should get paid or not to speak. Do you have any thoughts on that, Scott? I think it depends on

Who who you're speaking for and where you're speaking.

Like, you know, there's some conferences where I really rid like the organization. I really like the people running it. And for me, it's it's like not like a corporation That is making a ton of money off of this conference, but maybe it's just like good people putting this thing on or it's a technology that isn't That isn't flush with cash that you could essentially feel like you're you're taking advantage of them. But if some if if a friend Or a company or something. They want me to speak, and it's something that I really am passionate about. I'll do it for free with the travel as long as everything Works out, because it does you know what? And the whole doing it for exposure argument is kind of annoying, But it is real exposure. It's not fake exposure.

You know? Like, there there is, like, a a real benefit to getting that exposure, so I'm happy to do it for the exposure Given the right circumstance. But if you want me to to, you know, speak at this corporate event or something like that, I I think I I would like to get paid if the company has the ability to pay you. I think that is yeah. That's generally how I feel it out is that, like,

a, is it gonna be enjoyable for me? Like, I'd love love going to conferences. Sometimes, I'm just like, I don't care. I'll just do that. Other times, it's just like this is more of, like, an arrangement. You want me to come speak to the conference? It's I hate saying this, but, like, I'm kind of a big draw. We have a big podcast. We can talk about it.

You know? That's a big I Yeah. I kinda I hate saying that because it sounds very pikey. But the reason why They they try to get people that have lots of Twitter followers and a big podcast to speak at. The thing is because we will talk about it and people will buy tickets to it. Right? And Right. People are buying the ticket because you're there, not just because yeah. Yeah. At some point. Yeah. So there's that. I'm kind of in and out on whether sometimes I get paid a couple $1,000 to go speak and sometimes I lose a couple $100 off of it. So It really depends. And, of course, I'm coming from a place of privilege where I can say that. But, yeah, I think that there is also major benefits aside from money To speaking at conferences, like I just said.

And then the other thing is you can also, like, you can sometimes tack on, like, a training the day before or after the conference. And In person workshops pay much better than speaking does. It's a lot more work because you're doing a whole day workshop, but that is a pretty common thing these days with with conferences, though, at the very least, they'll say, hey, like sometimes people even say, like, if you want to do something locally, we can definitely organize that for you rid just to just to get you out. So, that's why you might wanna speak at a conference. It's good for your career. It's good for meeting people.

Rid. You meet all the right people, and it's super fun. Yeah. And and you should I mean, you've mentioned networking and meeting people, but that could The big thing, even if you're not trying to have a a career teaching or having, your own business.

I mean, you could meet somebody, Get a connection for a job, and then get a big payday in terms of getting a a new job, a new connection that way, Or maybe even b to b kind of business to business making a relationship, building partnerships, and things like that. I mean, you're you you build a partnership with Some some brand and some company and your boss is, like, psyched about that because that could bring in you know, at the end of the day, It's all about bringing in money for the the company that you're working for or for yourself or whatever.

Those could be big things for your career overall. No kidding. Like, the amount of times

I've been having dinner or having a couple of beers or whatever with titans of our industry.

Rid. People work at Apple, Google, Netflix.

People that I've been following forever

online. Forever.

Yeah. Nicole Sullivan was at Reactathon. And Scott and I just, like, chatted with her for, like, an hour. And we're like, I've been following your work for, like, 15 years. This is amazing.

Rid. And, sometimes those people will, like, get to know you and like you and be like, hey. If you ever wanna apply at, rid. X, y, and z. That's how I got my interview at Google, like, 10 years ago is I was at a conference, and I just met some guy, and we're just chatting. And then he sent me an email a couple of weeks later. Hey, nice to meet you. You're pretty cool. You want to apply? And it's just like, oh, man, who would have thought that, like, rid. There's thousands of people applying for jobs at these companies, and the shortcut around all of that is having, like, a kombucha with somebody.

Pretty good deal. You know what's funny is that I got my Google interview because somebody, was really into my rid YouTube videos, and they were like, I want this guy on my team.

Yeah. That I did to get the job. Come on.

Stupid Google interviews. Yeah. Stupid Google.

Anyways.

Next question section we have here is how do you get into speaking? So that's a big one. People say I would love to do it, but like. Where do you even start with that type of thing? So what I'll tell people is you should try to, rid. Like, have a deck of 2 or 3 different talks that you can start to shop around to different conferences. So you say, okay, I rid wanna get into speaking. I know about x, y, and z, or I have researched x, y, and z. So you don't necessarily have to be an expert, But you could go ahead and take something. The browser page transition API. That's something brand new. That's something literally nobody knows about. Rid. You could dive into that, figure out how it works, make a whole bunch of demos, and then put together you don't necessarily have to put the whole talk together, put together like a little abstract, a bunch of bullet points, things that people will take away from it.

And then you start ready to submit that to different conferences. So, there are often these things called call for papers, And there used to be an email list called CFP Weekly, and they would literally every this is how I really got into it. Every single week, they would send you an email with, I don't know, probably 5, 10, sometimes 15 different conferences around the world. Rid and you take your little proposal and you just apply to as many as you possibly can. And let me tell you, it works. It works really, really well.

Rid. So you can just you can submit that. Say, I would love to come here and talk about x, y, and z.

And then I think at that point, it's it's mostly just a numbers game of applying to it. There's no longer that email, and it seems to be that it's mostly just tweets that go around About now is the time to submit to these different conferences. So if I were you, people are like, where do I even find out about these? I seem to always miss them. I would probably put a tweet column