“If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.” ~ Woodrow T. Wilson
I read the previous quote in a guest post on Scott Kelby’s blog in April; noted it in reference to the two one-hour sessions where I would be speaking at She Speaks this weekend; and then promptly forgot about it. Something during Lysa Terkeurst’s opening conference session brought it to mind and I found the note that was synced to my phone and jotted it down: my opening remarks.
Obviously my talk was prepared word-for-word in advance.
Months ago when asked to speak, I realized that I would need a laptop of my very own for my sessions. For a girl who had been longing for a MacBook for some time, this was welcome news. It’s nice when a wish list item becomes a justifiable need, right? I saved my pennies and bought one from web designing income earlier this year.
My first session was “Technical Delights for Serious Bloggers,” and I had a 30-something page Keynote presentation (the Mac equivalent of PowerPoint) to illustrate it. Unfortunately, the projector had a cable on it designed to hook to a PC. We found a Mac adapter, but it didn’t have the right plug for my newer-model MacBook. We attached another MacBook from an audience member and loaded my presentation to her computer via jump drive, but she didn’t have the same version of Keynote that I’d used, and it wouldn’t play. (Mild panic attack was setting in at this point.)
Finally we exported the Keynote file as a PowerPoint file and played it on a PC. Whew! Fonts and formatting were lost in the transfer, but at least the slide show could be played. (I just want to insert a huge thank you to Lisa Boyd for her level-headed assistance to me and anyone else in need of technical support during the conference. She was my partner for the Technical Q&A following this session, too.)
Because I was teaching another session the next day with Emily, we knew the same thing would happen again without advance preparation. YIKES! Apparently the closest Apple store was about 25 miles away. The tech support guys at She Speaks were wonderful. One called his wife, who said that she would pick up the adapter and bring it after her haircut the next morning. I can just imagine her saying, “Honey, I’ll help you, but I’m not missing my haircut,” which is totally what I would have said, too. He recommended I get my own adapter if I thought I would be speaking again in the future.
My fabulous online-buddy-turned-real-life-friend Amy Bayliss was there, and she enabled my fool-proof scheme (especially since the Apple store didn’t have the adapter): broadcast the other session as a Webinar (like the “A Woman Inspired” and “Heart of the Matter” conferences) and stream it through a PC plugged into the conference room projector.
It worked fabulously!
Emily at Chatting at the Sky and I taught Bloggy Photography 101. We had such a good time and actually learned from each other while preparing and doing the session. If Nikon will sponsor us, watch for Bloggy Photography 101: The World Tour coming to a city near you.
I would need another post longer than this one to tell you about all the wonderful ladies I got to spend time with and either meet or get to know better. One thing I learned about myself was that I enjoyed speaking in the sessions, in spite of the technical issues. I’d done online webinars, but it was really fun to interact with the audience (and the other speaker, when Emily and I presented together).
Here are a few photos for you.
Emily:
Lysa TerKeurst and Amy Bayliss:
Emily, Stephanie from (in)courage, The Nester, Especially Heather, Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, Holley from (in)courage, and me.
The Nester’s rocking bracelet with her blog tagline:
Stephanie and Holley from (in)courage:
Heather from Especially Heather:
(in)courage, a new outreach of Dayspring, is working with a group of bloggers for their new website and product line. Heather and I were asked on Sunday morning to join them. We were both tickled to death and we’re not even sure exactly what we’ll be doing! Stephanie and Holley are so sweet and have such a vision for this project that it would be difficult not to be excited to be working with them.
Follow them @incourage on Twitter and visit the website to find out about the site unveiling next Monday!
Here is their table at She Speaks. You can see Holly shooting a video clip with The Nester in the background:
LOVED seeing you this weekend. The photo class ruled. Implementing some of your rules on pics I’m posting tomorrow. I’ll holla at you so you can critique. 🙂 Love ya, friend.
.-= AnnieBlogs´s last blog ..SheSpeaks: Ze Recap 09 =-.
I wish so much I could’ve been in your session. I know I would’ve learned a ton. I certainly did just sitting with ya’all at lunch. I am so honored to be included in these pictures! YOu’re an absolute blessing, yes you are!
.-= LauraLee@Selah´s last blog ..Runnin’ on Empty =-.
I knew that you would do well. A little adversity builds character!! Ha ha ha. I love Jo-Lynne! How great that you guys roomed together.
🙂
So fun…it was such a blast hanging out with you. It will be wonderful to have you join us with incourage. Maybe you’ll be the photo guru. 🙂
Thanks for linking you your post…hopefully, others will come see how great the weekend was. 🙂
.-= Jen@Balancing Beauty and Bedlam´s last blog ..Proverbs 31 – She Connects, She Ponders =-.
Delighted that you’re (in) too, Dawn!
So glad you said yes!
All’s grace,
Ann
.-= Ann Voskamp´s last blog ..How to Choose your life =-.
I’m so glad that your issues were resolved. Wait, that sounded weird… I mean your technical difficulties, yah… that’s it.
How exciting to be able to fellowship with and learn from such wonderful like-minded women! I’m looking forward to checking out incourage. Looks interesting.
.-= Marsha´s last blog ..Our 2009-2010 Curriculum =-.
Hi Dawn,
It was so much fun meeting you and hanging out in real life! I only wish we had more time to chat and maybe for some photography skillz {oh, yes I did} to rub off on me via osmosis.
You are great!
Talk soon,
Hillary
.-= Hillary @ The Other Mama´s last blog ..5 Reasons I’m NOT Angry with Delta =-.
Reading this makes my deosiicns easier than taking candy from a baby.
Dawn, I LOVED hanging out with you. So glad you were there and I’m so stealing the photo of my bracelet–may I?! Great photography!
I am not really a speaker, but I’m going to get one of those adapters too 😀
Glad I could help out. I had thought about going to other sessions, but the closer the conference got, the more I felt like God wanted me to be in all the bloggy sessions to support my friends 🙂 Just didn’t realize (and I should have!) all the technical difficulties that could go wrong!
You did an awesome job with your sessions! You make a wonderful teacher and I guess you’ve had practice — homeschooling 8 kids — showoff 😀
.-= Lisa B @ simply His´s last blog ..She Speaks 2009: The Prayer Room =-.
Sounds awesome, Dawn! Wish I had been there!
So good to see you at She Speaks. We love having you as part of our Blogger teaching team. I am so sorry you had so many tech difficulties but it looked and sounded like you had an amazing tech team. You girls amaze me with all your smart tech-savvy selves. I love the photos with this post too. My favorite is the verse box and the group shot at Five Guys!
Hugs,
Renee
Hi Dawn! Sure wish I could have been at SheSpeaks! But, so glad you’ll be a part of (in)courage! Love seeing these photos of some of my real life and bloggy friends!
blessings,
Melissa