That's an extremely high bar, no?
The bar is there, but it is lower than you expect. If you have a truly unique point of view to express, that brings some value to the table, slots will open up.
And I've spoken at plenty of conferences. :) Not always in the glamour rooms/slots. But... I did have one talk fill a room out the door. That was a talk on a difficult/controversial topic, and by then... I was probably about as expert as they came on the issue.
I didn't start with that though. I just started with a simple point of view talk. And I'd argue the second version of that talk is still one of the best I've given in my life.
This, very much this.
I run a paid, one-day, mid-sized conference every year, and with only so many slots, we find it very, very difficult to risk choosing people who don't have videos of themselves speaking.
A short meetup talk or a lightning talk at a different conference could make all the difference towards being selected, because we need to know that you're vaguely capable of conveying what you want to share to the audience.
hibikir•1h ago
hinkley•1h ago
Some introverts can use a long solo car trip to wind themselves up to deal with people or decompress afterward so they don’t take it out on their family. Others find it all too stressful and just makes it worse. But that’s like 20 minutes for me. I can’t imagine two hours. We didn’t drive that long to get to grandma’s house.
chrisweekly•27m ago
One minor tangent (aiming for helpfulness, not pedantry), "I have few" reads as "I don't have many" (emphasizes the low number), whereas "I have a few" emphasizes the fact there's more than one -- which from context was clearly your intent. HTH!