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Lightning Talks: The Audience Takes Over!
This is the event where you take control - we'll be running lightning talks and anyone (women and gender minorities preferred) can speak!
What is a Lightning Talk?
A lightning talk is a short talk, under five minutes on whatever subject you wish to speak about (Code of Conduct permitting!). At the start of the session the audience has time to come up, write their talk title on a post-it and stick it to the board and those talks make up our evening. If there are too many talks to fit in to the evening, we'll vote on our favourites.
For the audience it's a rapid-fire session where you'll learn loads and gain unique insight into the thoughts, ideas and passions of your peers.
For speakers it's a unique opportunity to speak your mind, try out a talk idea and boost your confidence in front of a friendly crowd. Since the talks are short, the pressure to prep and polish is low and you can focus on key ideas you want to share.
Great lightning talks we've seen
Lightbulbs and being lazy
How to wing a presentation
When I learned to stop
For inspiration, you can see some examples in this blog post about a previous Lightning Talks session at WiT Notts and this blog post about a previous Lightning Talks session at Tech Nottingham.
Slides?
You may prepare a few slides but it's totally optional; they must be in Powerpoint, Google Slides or Keynote format and be shared on the #wit-lightning-talks channel on the Tech Nottingham Slack group before the talks start (we'll be running them all from the same laptop so we don't waste time doing battle with the TV), or you're most welcome to send them to us privately.
Helpful Resources
We’ve collated various resources to help you on your speaking journey, from finding that initial idea, to planning and finally delivering your talk.
Win Free Stuff At WiT Notts!
Image of the cover of the book Brave, Not Perfect
This month at Women in Tech we'll be giving away a copy of the soon-to-be-released book, Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code.
About Brave, Not Perfect (source):
Imagine if you lived without the fear of not being good enough. If you didn’t care how your life looked on Instagram, or worry about what total strangers thought of you. Imagine if you could let go of the guilt, and stop beating yourself up for tiny mistakes. What if, in every decision you faced, you took the bolder path?
Too many of us feel crushed under the weight of our own expectations. We run ourselves ragged trying to please everyone, all the time. We lose sleep ruminating about whether we may have offended someone, pass up opportunities that take us out of our comfort zones, and avoid rejection at all costs.
There’s a reason we act this way, Reshma says. As girls, we were taught to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers praised us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so we didn’t get hurt, and steered us to activities at which we could shine.
The problem is that perfect girls grow up to be women who are afraid to fail. It’s time to stop letting our fears drown out our dreams and narrow our world, along with our chance at happiness.
By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. Perfection may set us on a path that feels safe, but bravery leads us to the one we’re authentically meant to follow.
In Brave, Not Perfect, Reshma shares powerful insights and practices to help us override our perfect girl training and make bravery a lifelong habit. By being brave, not perfect, we can all become the authors of our biggest, boldest, and most joyful life.
Attend and tweet on the #WiTNotts hashtag to be in with a chance of winning this fascinating book!
Join in with the Nottingham Tech Community online
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The conversation continues online in the Tech Nottingham Slack group, which is a bustling, friendly online community with a channel for (almost) everything you can think of from #pets-corner to #devcorner, #podcasts to #design and everything in between. We also have a dedicated #women-in-tech channel - we'd love to see you there!
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