My first uncon talk

About 2 months ago, when 010php started, I started playing with the idea of giving talks myself. At first I was pretty anxious to actually execute that plan. I talked with some people that I had the idea and they all encouraged me to do it. So I started writing down some ideas I already had. But until last week, I didn't actually had a talk planned anywhere.

But last Tuesday, Lineke asked me if I would give a uncon talk at PFcongres 2013, I don't think she new I was already playing with the idea, but she was very convincing and I said I would do my best to prepare something.

Because of limited time, I started to prepare the evening before the conference, at that point I hadn't even decided what subject I would choose for the talk... I decided on PHPCR and luckily the preperation went fairly well and I even rehearsed it once!

So yesterday the conference was there, and on my way in the train I even managed to talk myself into a calmer state. Don't get me wrong, I was still nervous as hell... just a bit less then before. I spoke to Linke en we planned my talk at 12.10. After that I just went to the talks, trying not to think about it to much anymore. At the talk just before my uncon slot, I got a bit nervous when Joshua already mentioned he didn't now if he would be done in time. Should I leave the talk early to be on time? Should I just leave with everybody else? Eventually I decided that I would leave 5 minutes before my talk started. That gave me some time to visit a restroom (to much coffee...), and still be on time for my talk. This meant I walked out while Joshua was still answering some questions (sorry for that), but it made me feel a bit better.

Giving the talk went pretty well, of course I forgot to bring a VGA connector, but I could use Lineke's (thanks!). I pretty much gave my talk as intended (only forgot to tell 1 thing), and got some good questions, so apparently people weren't bored to death :) Just before the end of my talk I noticed myself saying Uhh between pretty much every sentence, so I learned something while giving the talk!

After the talk Lineke already gave me some feedback (she noticed the Uhh's as well) and I spoke some people that had seen it. Another important thing I learned, is that a topic like PHPCR is very hard to explain, and nearly impossible to explain in 10-15 minutes, so next time I would probably want a 50min slot and I need to rethink how I can explain the subject to people that have no clue about it. On a sidenote: you can still comment on my talk, so please leave feedback!

All with all was it a great experience and I'm certain I will do it again. Maybe I'll even submit a actual talk to a conference next year.