I was asked to speak for a small group of people on behalf of my Javascript expertise at a meeting of frontend web developers. Of course I said yes, and started thinking about it. I wanted to use my newly learned lessons from The Art of Hosting. I also told my host I wanted to take a personal approach, and would like to include my own stories. I said I wouldn’t be needing a beamer or flipover. He was very interested and let me go my way.
When we went to the presentation room, I saw a round table. Just big enough to host us all. We were with 9 people, so that created an intimate space.
I started with a check-in and asked each person to tell us who they are, what inspires them, and what they’d expect from the evening.
When the first person started all became engaged, and we listened with interest when each took their turn. Some talked about their professional self, others took a more personal route. Wonderful!
I felt my body relaxed, my mind clear, and was able to truly listen to the others, and get familiar with their faces. Questions were asked from genuine interest.
Finally I told my own story. I was able to be fully at ease and look everybody in the eye. That was a first for me, and I attribute that to the initial check-in round. And the small group as well.
I talked about my personality, my lack in degrees, my initial insecurities because of that, and how I overcame that by reading whatever I could about my area of expertise. About how I got to know myself better, enabling me to become more solid and gain integrity. That I sometimes need to manage my overenthusiasm.
The group responded multiple times by asking questions and recognitions.
In essence I was telling authentic stories, exposing my weaknesses, and how I gained strength by accepting and getting to know them. Their faces told me they were intrigued, sometimes amazed, but all of them were engaged. Some faces started showing minor agitation, which I think was some impatience for my build up, or the mismatch with their expectations.
So to move them towards the topic of the evening (Javascript) I then went on to speak about the moment I fell for Javascript, and who was on my path to inspire me.
I talked about my open source project called backbone-everywhere, and that it was meant to be a demo for a startup. This project involves bleeding edge open source javascript, which is common ground to most of us. So we ended with a discussion about our area of interest, which we all hoped to talk about.
Afterwards I asked them for feedback, what they thought about the format, about my way of hosting.
They all preferred our participatory setup over a regular presentation, and felt energized.
Because I hardly got any critical feedback I kept asking for it.
One person then told me he got a little bit frustrated for not knowing how and where it would go. I thanked him, and explained I am learning to detect such signals in the heat of the moment, so I can ask what is needed.
Some people told me that more structure in the informative section would be nice. I agreed there. The lack of a visual presentation gave them a new experience and engagement, but I realize that I should have some visual structure for stories that involve lots of technical aspects.
When most of the people were gone, I remained with the two intitators of the evening. They were very enthusastic about my approach and we talked setting up a new Javascript course together.
What an energizing and fruitful night! It’s wonderful to see everything come together, and life aspects seeping into work, and vice versa.
