TSBT50: Cocktails and Lectures
Public speaking and software engineering
My dearest gentlest reader,
Happy new week to you. I hope this week has brought you joy and a cup of piping hot aromatic tea.
I came across an interesting story on Instagram about lectures taking place in an NYC pub, which was something along the lines of creativity. I wished I were part of that because based on the story, it seemed folks were having fun, laughing, drinking and getting food for their thought, or in this case, drinks for their thoughts.
I set out on a quest to look for a similar activity in London. I finally found one called Pints of Knowledge which was similar but different in the naming. The one in NYC is known as Lectures on Tap.
There were a lot of lectures and talks scheduled, but the timings were not ideal because of work and life. I finally got to attend one recently by Ian Hawkins, “Why Everything You Know About Public Speaking Is Wrong”. The session was a must-attend talk in my book because I do a lot of public speaking. The cherry on top was that he is a storyteller himself, and that just sealed it for me. Ian is a speaker, storyteller, and coach for Netflix, and has worked with CEOs, politicians, comedians and Olympians. Most of all, he is a pleasant human being, very chatty and vibrant. We got to chatting a little bit after about a couple of questions I had after the session.
The nuggets I would like to share with you, based on the lecture, would be the three A’s:
Authority: warm up before going on stage, this can be any form like breathing exercises, use silence as you speak, silence is good, nerves are good(you are not anxious, you are excited), use thank you instead of sorry.
Audience: The audience wants you to succeed. You command the room; give the audience what they came for.
Authenticity: Be yourself.
All good stories contain the following:
The Crisis: This is the core problem you are trying to solve.
Reason Why the Crisis Happens: The root cause that led to the problem.
The Decision to Move Forward: The moment of commitment to take action and solve the crisis.
The Dark Point: The low moment where failure seems likely. The solution hits its major roadblock.
The Resolution to the Crisis: The successful outcome where the action taken overcomes the roadblock and solves the initial crisis.
When you are doing your presentations and want to make it a story, the above can serve as a plotline. I hope you attend one of these. I find them very interesting. I will keep you updated on the next one I go to, it might be a mythical one, art or whatever sings to me at the moment. Cocktails and lectures make a lot of sense to me.
Previously on all that is good and grey in the world of software, pay yourself first by doing meaningful work first over the endless cycle of meetings and emails.
Actual value of writing high value tests comes from the tests failing usefully since they prevent slowdowns from manual checks and safeguard codebases.
How I learned System Design by breaking it down to smaller topics and watching mock interviews to understand the thought process.
How I accidentally created the fastest CSV parser ever made, cisv*.
Stop building for scale when you don’t have users yet!
On reading books and being a reader.
Development gets better with age.
Why microservices need event-driven architecture.
The word of the day is Muse. Muse means to think about something carefully or thoroughly.
Examples in a sentence:
She mused on the possibility of pursuing a master’s degree.
I am making my grand departure into the unknown.
Until the next fortnight, my treasured reader, go forth, and may the odds be ever in your favour! 👏 🤖 ✊ ☠️ 🏹 🪖
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