I’m not someone who keeps a lot of memorabilia, but I do have a large collection of conference badges. Most of these are from events I spoke at, and a few from other memorable events. While decorating my new garden office I decided to pin them to a corkboard. It turned out that I had massively underestimated how many I had, but most are now on the wall.
There are a large number of the understated badges from An Event Apart, where I spoke at every event for several years. CSS Day is well represented, CSSConf EU several “Future of” event badges, and many more. They represent over 15 years of my life spent wandering the globe going on about the web.
My first main stage speaking gig was at Web Directions @media in 2010, speaking about “Core CSS3”, although I’d been on a panel at earlier @media events in 2006 and 2008 (there are some amazing photos from the 2006 event on Flickr). The Web Directions crew took on the events from Patrick Griffiths, who started the series in 2005. The @media conferences began at a time when there wasn’t a web conference scene here in the UK, the first real opportunity for web folk in the UK to get together and meet industry stars from the USA. I’d never considered myself a speaker, and was completely terrified about that first big stage. The Rachel from 2010 would be amazed by my speaker badge collection today!
Once I’d got over my fear of public speaking, I worked to become good at it. I realised quickly that I was never going to be the sort of speaker who could wing it. My style is scripted and rehearsed, to the extent that I used to queue up tweets using Buffer to go out at the right time in my talk, and made it a point of pride to close my An Event Apart talks as the timer ticked to zero. I’m not an exciting speaker, there are people far better at opening or closing a show, but I can explain pretty much anything I’ve wrapped my head around. Often CSS, but I’ve also presented on subjects as varied as content management, Puppet, and the business of selling software. As with writing, I just figure out something interesting, and then share it.
Speaking brought me so many opportunities, much more so than all the books I’ve written. As a quiet, introverted person, I’m not great at starting or inserting myself in conversations. Being a speaker lets me start a conversation on stage, and afterwards people approach me to continue that discussion, or reach out by email later. New ideas often come from these discussions. I keep notes of the questions I’m asked and the things that seem to most resonate, using them as jumping off points for new talks or articles. I’ve often used a talk as a way to test out a way of explaining something, as you get immediate feedback on how well it lands—something it’s hard to measure from written content.
Speaking also let me travel the world and experience things I never imagined I’d have the chance to do. While at conferences I’ve flown in hot air balloons, taken part in triathlons and running races, and done parkruns all over the world. I’ve been incredibly fortunate.
Looking at these badges, and thinking about the conferences they represent is also sad. Many of the events represented in my badge collection have ended. Those that continue are often scrambling just to break even. They are run by good people, who want to ensure that the community still has a place to meet and share ideas, and they deserve our support. One simple way we can all do that is to buy tickets early for events we want to attend rather than waiting until the last minute.
While I’m less keen on doing lots of travel these days, I hope I’ll get to add a few more badges to my collection. But more than that, I hope there will still be stages where people can start conversations, and start careers, long after I’ve put together my last slide deck.