Week 29-30: Speaking and (partly) organising the mess
Hello! Week 27-28 was about learning and reflection which overlaps a bit with my personal journey as well. I started the Artist’s Way. I have been writing 4 pages every morning for 3 weeks now! I have been a few artist dates as well.
What did I particularly enjoy these two weeks?
On Tuesday I did something for the first time - recording my talk at a studio! This was my talk for Mendix World 2021. It was a great experience (in hindsight). I was nervous leading up to the recording. On Monday evening I realised that I would not be able to access my slide notes in the studio. This meant that I practised my talk till late in the evening till I could say all I wanted to say without fumbling.
When I got to the studio, it was interesting to see the setup. To look at the camera while talking and glance every now and then at my slides. Not having an audience that nods along was weird but also meant no distractions. The main difference for me between giving a presentation to a team vs giving a conference talk is that hardly anyone knows me in the latter. Presenting feels like performing an act on the stage. You show a different self and that can give a lot of power for the inner critic to bombard you with blurbs and statements.
Just realised my question was about what I enjoyed.. Well looking back it was an enriching process and I got over my fear of recording a talk in a studio. I loved the speaker coaching that we got. I liked how I engaged with people to get feedback for my talk and iterate on it. This experience made me face my inner critic head-on and I made it through with support and encouragement from some folks.
What did I do differently?
I procrastinated a lot till there was no more time left to finetune my talk and practice. The procrastinator in me knows that I can get things done on time. I also blocked two full days for Crafting Days which I spent organising my notebook and files on my computer. The brain space I cleaned up is immense.
Here's a picture of my latest notebook. I bookmarked some pages to find them when needed.
We also tried a different retro format for one of the research projects that we wrapped up. This is a format that I created inspired by Nikki Anderson's talk at UX insight. You can access the miro template here.
What am I summarising at the moment?
I summarised my talk, the slides and the presentation. I am starting a couple of new projects next week. Well, I already started them as I have been preparing Project Brief docs (a practice that I brought into my work at Mendix from my agency experience).
That broadly summarises my two weeks. Apart from fun lunch catchup with Jasmine where we talked over South Indian food. Topics ranged from C&C, leadership, testing, learning Dutch and her love for Amsterdam.
