The Low-down on Speaking at GHC16

So you're speaking at GHC16. What do you need to know? How can you prepare to be the best you can be? How do you calm your nerves?!

Although I wasn't lucky enough to have any submissions accepted to this year's conference, I have spoken at Grace Hopper before along with many other venues. Let me start by reassuring you that this is one of the very best places to present. I have rarely found a more wonderfully supportive audience.

Let's get some of the official stuff out of the way. As a speaker, you need to thoroughly read through everything on the speakers section of the conference website. In particular, note the quick references on the right.

I'd like to draw your attention especially to the Speaker Ready Room info. There, you'll learn about uploading your slides before your presentation, and you'll see a link to the slides template. Please take the time to design your presentation using the template right from the get-go. Trying to shoehorn an existing presentation into the template tends to look unprofessional, and not using the template at all even more so. Also make sure to leave plenty of time to upload your presentation and test it. You'll want to make sure any embedded media is actually embedded, and that your fonts and colours look ok.

The conference website also includes some tips on speaking. I'd also like to share another amazing resource that brings you weekly inspiration and advice on speaking: a newsletter called Technically Speaking. Subscribe now and you will benefit leading up to your talk, and check out the archives as well.

Finally, I have a few tips of my own:

• Design your slides with as few words as possible. Convey the main idea through pictures and a short phrase.
• Add speaker notes into the notes section of the slides. When practising, you can simply read the notes at first. This should make you familiar enough to be able to improvise more day-of.
• Practice in front of colleagues at some point with enough time to receive feedback. Provide them with a written feedback form they can use to give you anonymous ideas for improvement.
• On the day of your talk, arrive in the room early to give yourself time to calm your nerves.
• Make sure you have access to water during the talk.
• Before you start, take some deep breaths, maybe with your eyes closed. Think yoga breathing.
• Invite the audience to chat with you after the talk, and stand somewhere where it's easy for the audience to actually do so.

Good luck with your talk – I'll know you'll be awesome!

Your GH11 Presentation is Ready -- Now It’s Time to Practice

I’m guessing that most of us have pretty much completed preparations for our Grace Hopper presentations, right? For myself, I have thought a lot about my audience and I’ve made decisions about how much I will be able to say -- and say well -- in the hour that I have been allotted. What now? My presentation is on Friday. I’m done, right? Well --- now it’s time to practice.

There are two fundamental ways to practice: 1) silently and 2) aloud. The first way involves a review of your presentation in your own head. We all do this a lot before we present because it helps us feel comfortable with our story and because we think that we will be less likely to forget what we want to say if we go over and over things in our minds. It is easy to practice this way because we can give ourselves a silent presentation anywhere and anytime.

The second way of practicing asks more of us and leads to different results. I will be very direct here -- I believe that you must practice your talk aloud in order to deliver an authentic and well-paced presentation. And you must practice in a way that simulates the context in which you will speak. (It would probably be ideal if we could all practice giving our talks to a real audience in a real meeting room, but most of us are not that lucky. No worries -- make a commitment to practicing aloud and know that you are preparing yourself for a great result.)

Find a space where you can set up your laptop and project your visuals. I have practiced this way in my living room where the visuals are projected on the wall; and I have practiced this way in a hotel room. Even if you are not able to project the visuals during your rehearsal, you can set up your laptop and use it in the same way that you will use it during your talk. Being comfortable with the physical things you will do during your presentation is very important -- almost as important as being familiar with your story.

Practice introducing yourself and getting into the talk; practice moving around; practice your gestures; practice with the laser pointer if you will use one; figure out when to advance to a new visual and practice the verbal transitions; see how it feels to look around to all parts of the room; play with volume and speed. Also be sure that you time yourself during your rehearsals so that you know where you are and where you want to be during each section of your presentation.

In addition to practicing aloud in a “real” context, you can practice aloud to an invisible listener while riding your bicycle, while cooking, while in the shower. You will be able to hear the speed, the pauses, and the flow in a way that you cannot hear these details when the story is a silent one. Any time you speak aloud, even to yourself, you are incorporating the physical and sensory aspects of presenting, and you are preparing yourself for the real experience of transforming thoughts and ideas into a spoken story.

Have fun with your preparations and rehearsals. I will see you next week in Portland!

Organizing Your Talk for Grace Hopper 2011

Sometimes the task of organizing a talk seems more challenging than the material that you will talk about. Here are some things that might be helpful as you prepare your Grace Hopper 2011 presentations -

1. Story

Compose a logical story for your audience. Select the precise body of material you want your audience to learn and “know” as a result of attending your talk or panel -- include only the content that is directly applicable to this particular talk. Divide your story into the sections that you will cover, like “introduction,” “concept 1,” “concept 2,” “questions and answers,” and so on.

2. Backward buildup

Backward buildup is a way of thinking about your talk from the perspective of what you would like the audience to understand by the time you finish speaking. Distributing your content in the backwards direction ensures that your story ends where and when you intend, that each section is balanced and builds to the conclusion, and that the story in its entirety “fits” within the time you have been allotted.

Working backwards from the end of your talk, assign a chunk of time to each section of the story. Work all the way back to the first minute of the talk. Example - “My total time is 1 hour. I want the audience to understand 5 aspects of rhetorical positioning -- audience, purpose, genre, tone, and style; I want to discuss a sample text; I will end with questions and answers.” From the end of the talk to the beginning, the sections in the example talk are -

Section

8 Questions and Answers 10 minutes

7 Group analysis of a text 18 minutes

6 Style 5 minutes

5 Tone 5 minutes

4 Genre 10 minutes

3 Purpose 5 minutes

2 Audience 5 minutes

1 Introduction 2 minutes

60 minutes total

As you work through the backward buildup process, you may find that there is not enough time for all of the material you wanted to cover. If this happens, go back and delete the non-essential stuff, and repeat the backward buildup until you have a solid time plan that embraces your material. The sequence of topics in each section and the articulation across sections should have a logical flow.

3. Timing

All of the sections, including the question and answer period, must add up to no more than the total number of minutes allotted for your talk. When organizing the timing, you must account for possible technical problems, ideas that come to you in real time, and appropriate anecdotes, so leave some breathing room in your plan. Your talk should be thorough, interesting, and maybe even inspiring!

4. Selection of visuals

Go back to your story and the timed sections. Ask: “Are there any visuals that will help elucidate this section?” If no, move on and tell that part of the story without visuals -- audiences love this approach. If yes, then select only the visuals that advance your story. Maintain your love and attachment to other slides you may have prepared, but use only the slides that promote understanding and inspiration of your audience’s experience.

5. Visuals

The guiding principles when incorporating a slide into your talk is that the slide must advance your discussion, it must add an illustration and representation of an important concept, and it must be crystal clear. Each visual should be easy to navigate and understand from the point of view of the audience member. Don't crowd your slides -- “Less is more.” The language on each slide should be grammatically perfect; choose a font and use it consistently; build the slide from left to right and top to bottom.

6. Delivery

Have fun and don’t rush. Do not repeat -- keep things moving forward. And think about this perspective: You are the reason the participants are there; your connection with the material and with the audience is the important ingredient. It does not matter one bit if you delete a few details from your talk. It is more important to respond to questions and points of interest that the participants raise -- they have traveled long distances to learn from you and they deserve your direct attention.

7. Enjoyment

Your presentation experience at Grace Hopper 2011 should be as enjoyable for you as it is for your audience members!

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges Faced by Women in Computing

Communication skills are very important. I can't stress that enough. I recently graduated with a master's degree and have been looking for a job for several months now and I've seen it: employers want you to have communications skills. If you are very smart but you can't communicate or get along with others, you are of no use to them.

In my opinion, you can read about communication all you want but it still won't be the same as actually putting it into practice. What I recommend is, whenever you can, do presentations, network, write blogs or e-mails or articles... even if you don't want to. That's why I decided to become External Affairs Executive of CU-WISE. I did it because I was an introvert and I wasn't a great communicator. Not to mention I never liked speaking to someone for the first time. It drained me. But after 2 years in that role, here I am writing blogs, speaking at high schools, networking at conferences, and promoting CU-WISE everywhere I go. By the way, a great way to socialize is to wear something goofy (like a funny hat), to be a photographer (approaching people by taking their pictures), or carry something funny (like the duckies in the picture). The CU-WISE executives approached her just because of those silly things!

My notes on this session don't give the panelists justice because I couldn't always keep up with typing what they were saying. They did spend a fair bit of time speaking about different kinds of communication norms in different kinds of cultures. That is definitely something to watch out for. I remember I met a young Iranian lady through CU-WISE and she told me about a concern she had. She asked me why the males in her classes didn't take her seriously. She was in engineering. I asked her to explain because I never felt that way in my undergrad. She told me that when she asks a guy a question about a course, let's say about a formula or something, he always ends up laughing or joking and never answers the question. I thought about it and asked her to explain exactly how she asks these questions. She was a very kind young lady with a very low voice so I thought that maybe she just didn't speak loud enough. In the end I found out that it was in her culture to not look a man in the eyes while speaking with him and to many people here that could show anywhere from lack of confidence to disrespect. I personally feel uncomfortable when someone doesn't look me in the eyes when they are speaking to me. I would assume that they just don't respect me or the conversation we are having.

So I would like to close by reminding you all again to practice, practice, and practice! Does anyone have any comments or suggestions about this topic? About the notes?

Landing a Job and Succeeding in Industry: Bridging the gap between in-class learning and job-related skills

As a senior undergraduate about to transition from school to full-time work in three months, I’m definitely starting to feel the anticipation and stress of the competitive job search.

So what can students do to stand out from the crowd?
"The number one skill recruiters look for in technical positions are communication skills."

Looking back on my undergraduate career I have learned more from my experiences outside of the classroom than from all the hours spent laboring over my textbooks and cramming for finals. Joining professional and student groups on campus, attending conferences and competitions, and doing internships every year has given me the opportunity to build my confidence in my technical and communication skills. My internships have given me the chance to interview the employer, explore different types of positions, teams, workplace environments, and build my skills sets. Student internships provide the power to “manage your own career” and find out what works best for you.

And as we've all learnt from GHC, the importance of networking is fundamental for our careers. Professional groups, internships, attending competitions and conferences are great ways to build a professional network.

Systers code sprint at GHC 2009

One session I'm really excited about is the Systers code sprint. This was a late addition to the program, so I want to make sure you don't miss it!

Systers Code Sprint at GHC09
Time: 16:00-20:00 - AST, Thursday, October 01, 2009
Where: GHC09 - Room: Tucson A
[More information]

From coders to writers to artists to testers... we'll be looking for people with all sorts of skills. (And if you can't make it to GHC, you can stop by the IRC channel to help too!) Check out the current task list and see what might suit your expertise, or just stop by and see how you can help on the day, because new ideas are bound to come up. You don't have to stay the whole time, either, just stop by for as long as you can.

And if you'll indulge me for bit, let me tell you why I'm so excited about the Systers code sprint at GHC09.

The fact that it's a code sprint to help roll out some new stuff for Systers is plenty of reason to be excited, but this is extra special to me because one of the things we'll be working on is Mailman, which is a mailing list manager and open source project near and dear to my heart.

First, it's exciting to me because mailing lists have been a large part of the way I "meet" other women involved in computing, like the wonderful women involved with LinuxChix, Systers and many others. Mailing lists provide us a way to connect with others around the world. Many women in computing feel quite isolated, and it's wonderful to be part of a global community.

Of course, the joy of mailing lists is hardly limited to women in computing. They're used by universities, friends, political parties, and special interest groups of all stripes. They're also commonly used to help coordinate efforts for open source projects. Which brings me to the second reason I love Mailman: I'm a developer! I'm actually one of the core developers, plus I wrote a lot of documentation for it. So I'm always thrilled to see new ways in which people want to use it, and of course I love seeing people hack on the projects that I contribute to. And I admit, since I'm currently trying to work on helping improve the usability for the next version, I'm always out there asking people how they like it and what we can fix in the future.

So I'll be at the Systers code sprint helping out as a Mailman developer, but you don't have to be interested in Mailman to help out! There's lots of other good reasons to be interested. Hope to see you there!

On being a shy connector

Adapted from a post I made to the Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering group.

With GHC coming up soon, maybe you're excited about all the new people you'll meet... and maybe you're a bit terrified by the idea of being in a sea of strangers. Even potentially awesome strangers can be pretty overwhelming en masse!

My friend Sacha is a self-confessed shy person who is also good at meeting new people, giving presentations... typical extrovert stuff. And she does it all without defeating her shyness, but rather finding ways to connect that don't require her to be outgoing.

Check out her tips on being a shy connector. My favourite tip involves wearing a funny hat (or something else notable) to get people to come up to you and talk, because when I met Sacha I absolutely had to go up to her and ask about her huge camera and tiny computer. It works!

I've embedded her slides below, but it's worth reading her blog post that goes with them, too!

The Shy Connector

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

I'm looking forwards to meeting people at GHC! You can come see my talk on web security in the PhD forum 4 (just before lunch on Wednesday). And I do love having other people talk to me, so I may just find something crazy to wear -- keep an eye out!

Why Patty's Glad She Went to GHC

Our Anita Borg Institute e-newsletter has been publishing a series of responses to our call for Why I'm Glad I Went to GHC stories. This thoughtful response from Patty L is a great illustration of how the Grace Hopper Celebration can impact a career — and a life. Here's Patty's story, in its entirety. — bj

Attending GHC in 2006 pulled together all of my passions: a love of technology, a desire to address isolation and plateau challenges at work, and a desire to work on the K-12 pipeline issues for women and minorities. It was marvelous to be in such a large community of intelligent and talented women from all over the world. You could talk about anything – work, home, technical, non-technical, family, pets, hobbies, outreach -- whatever was on your mind or in your heart. The sessions mirrored the conversations – professional development, work/life balance, technology, panels, outstanding keynotes. It was inspiring to attend an awards ceremony that recognized women who have paved the way, despite innumerable roadblocks and hardships.

A “Birds of a Feather” session that was focused on Latinas in Engineering caught my eye. There I found a community of women with whom I could identify and share challenges unique to my culture, ethnicity, and values. The session organizers were Gilda Garreton (Sun Microsystems) Dilma da Silva (IBM TJ Watson Research Center), and Cecilia Aragon (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). In that session, Latinas in Computing was formed, along with other contributing members Raquel Romano (Google) and Claris Castillo (IBM), and me. Latinas in Computing has since grown to include many more active members, and we have worked on numerous panel and workshop sessions every year at GHC and elsewhere to grow and support the technical Latina community. We host a Latinas in Computing luncheon every year at GHC for anyone who wants to attend. We’ve received invaluable support from the Anita Borg Institute and from other generous corporate sponsors.

Every year I come back from GHC energized, motivated, and focused. The realization of why hit me after my first conference – I remembered an article by Deborah Tannen. She distinguished between male and female conversational rituals – girls tend to learn rituals that focus on rapport, while boys tend to learn rituals that focus on status. At the typically male-dominated technical conferences I had attended in the past, it required thoughtful, concerted effort to interact with male peers (most of whom I’d never met before) -- at every meal, every session, and every breakout I felt like I was always “on”, inadvertently focusing on the status dimension. It was exhausting! I came home drained and deflated. At one conference in particular, I was pregnant with twins and literally stuck out like a sore thumb – which reinforced a deep-seated fear that l didn’t really belong in technology. The key reason I attend year after year is because the GHC community is inviting, intelligent, inclusive, and supportive. Sessions and conversations with other attendees at GHC helped me understand that I could enjoy being a technologist and a woman, a mentor and a protégé, a mother, a syster, a Latina, and a friend – I could just be myself.

Stepping outside my work environment and into the GHC community made me realize that I needed to move on professionally, and gave me the skills and support to make a successful job transition. Starting over was the hardest thing I’ve ever done – leaving the expertise, security, and network I spent almost two decades building. To try something new was incredibly empowering - it won’t be nearly as hard to do the next time. I now have a supportive community to draw from, and I was able to quickly rebuild a new network. I learned a lot about myself in the process, and started my new job with a clean slate and a fresh perspective.

There’s still so much work be done to level the playing field for women and minorities of all ages, we need “all hands on deck” to make inroads over the next decade. At GHC 2007, I was compelled to bring my own middle-school-aged daughter, in an attempt to keep her interest in science and technology alive (OK, I bribed her with a few days at Disney World!). 2009 will mark her third GHC conference. I hope she will look back on these formative years as pivotal in deciding who she wanted to be and what she wanted to accomplish with her life. I want her to have what I lacked through most of my academic education: to find role models she can relate to for inspiration and mentorship, to learn to navigate her own path at her own pace, to learn how to build her own community, and to be fearless to pursue her dreams.