March 19, 2017

New Ministry of Testing Meetup! Care to Workshop Ten Minute Lightning Talks? Let's Group Up!

The only way to become a better public speaker? Practice, Practice, Practice!

Want to practice public speaking with me?

Here's my crazy idea: I need three volunteers who want to practice public speaking. We all meet together for a few hours once a week for four (or five) weeks in a row. We each pick a topic relating to Software Testing or Quality Assurance, and work it into a ten minute presentation, i.e. a "Lightning Talk". When we are ready, we present our talks to the Ministry of Testing - Boston.

Yes, it will be scary. For me, the idea terrifies me. Public speaking is a skill I need to learn. We can learn from each other. We can all "learn by doing".

I was thinking we could meet in April 2017: Mondays 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24. 

Sign up here, with the Ministry of Testing - Boston: https://www.meetup.com/ministry-of-testing-boston/events/238544757/


T.J. Maher is 5 foot 7, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a red MEETUP sign attached to his black messenger bag. He should be there by 5:45 pm just to make sure there is a table he can steal.

Itinerary:

Would this work? Let's discuss during the first meeting!


• 4/3/2017: Let's introduce each other and bounce around topic ideas that we each want to work on!
• 4/10/2017: Share the outlines we created for the talk, with each of us trying to come up with a good beginning for the talk. (We can decide on a new location, some restaurant or coffee shop).
• 4/17/2017: Each of us run through the first five minutes of our talks. Solicit Feedback. (We can decide on a new location, some restaurant or coffee shop).
• 4/24/2017: Each of us does a run through the full ten minutes. How are we? Do we need another session, or are we ready to present our talks to the Ministry of Testing - Boston? (We need to see if we can grab a place to stand up and present).


Question: How big should I make this event? I was thinking a small group would be better. But should we raise the attendee limit from a group of four people (three plus me) total to a group of five people total?

What is a Lightning Talk? (According to Wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talk

"The YAPC (Yet Another Perl Conference) 19100 Conference came up with the term “lightning talk” at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The term was first coined by Mark Jason Dominus in June 2000. The practice of lightning talks was first known to be used at the Python Conference in 1997, but was not named until the YAPC 19100 Conference".

Once again, you can sign up at the Meetup page for the Ministry of Testing - Boston: https://www.meetup.com/ministry-of-testing-boston/events/238544757/

Happy Testing!
-T.J. Maher
Twitter | LinkedIn | GitHub

// Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, Software Tester since 1996.
// Contributing Writer for TechBeacon.
// "Looking to move away from manual QA? Follow Adventures in Automation on Facebook!"

No comments: