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I'm an occasional lurker here but I created this account because of this comment as it represents what is so annoying about this community sometimes. What exac

by tititi 7y ago

I'm an occasional lurker here but I created this account because of this comment as it represents what is so annoying about this community sometimes. What exactly are you aiming to achieve with this comment? Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. > In my early days, I had also this urge but it's wrong. The whole post is wrong. Ask yourself WHY you want to speak at tech conferences. What's the aim of your speech? Most of the times and most people don't have an answer. Who are you to say it's wrong? Even if people are doing it for the wrong reasons, the fact that they are doing it means that this post is relevant to them. To call the post "wrong" is so arrogant and adds nothing to the contribution. All it does is give you a useless delusion of grandeur that makes you think you know better than this author, or those that find value in the post. > - To increase your personal market value? You think one speech is enough? Not at all. You need so much more. A topic, more than your vim config or some Github repo which got five stars. You need achievements, first. You need a damn story, a sharp profile. Then go out and hold 10 talks/year, shotgun Google's video search with your talks. This makes no sense. If you're still advocating for eventually going to give talks, why did you start off by calling this post wrong when it gives advice to people that want to speak? > And be aware that public talks don't necessarily improve your market value. One so-so talk on Youtube about your vim config at some third-class conference is worse than nothing. Besides, most tech conference are third-class. This sounds like a personal problem for you. And no, one so-so talk on Youtube about your vim config at some third-class conference isn't necessarily worse than nothing > Public speaking skills are overrated. It's enough to be able to moderate a meeting/standup for 10-50 people. To do proper speaking, you need to do it frequently, you need to understand entertainment, sometimes you need script writers, media trainers, etc. If you're moderating a meeting with 10-50 people, good public speaking skills will go a long way into making the meeting worthwhile for the attendees. I have no relation to the author of this post, but it's jarring seeing comments like that throw away nuance and kindness, and let out arrogant statements all under the guise of intellectualism.

hnbreak 7y ago
My tone is harsh because bad public speaking significantly damages your profile => your career => salary => $$/year. ps: I just read your reply, in the meantime I edited/extended my initial post
- ghaff 7y ago
  Honestly, that seems like an overstatement. The same could be said for anything finding its way onto the internet that doesn't represent you at your current best. Maybe if you're a really bad speaker/writer/etc. and, for whatever reason, think you will never get better you should be cautious about doing anything that will expose you online. But I'd suggest simply improving might be a better approach. In the case of speaking specifically, if you don't start off giving maybe so-so talks at a Meetup, you're probably never going to get better. ADDED: To your example. So if your first C++ code doesn't hit it out of the park, you should just give up?
  - hnbreak 7y ago
    Why are you aggressive? I am just saying public speaking is a core asset of a slightly different career path. You can follow this and there're many career opportunities, especially in tech marketing/dev evangelizing but it's a different path than being an engineer, coding all day or a managing engineer heading devs in the right direction. Holding good speeches is hard work and takes time. Writing good code, sketching solid abstractions is hard work and takes time as well. Focus on one. And if your code/repo/whatever got 100K stars on Github, then of course hold a speech, it will be easy because everybody want just to see THAT guy. It's complex and this notion, everybody should hold speeches yes, but a guide to speaking at tech conferences? IDK. If people like public speaking and want to center the career around it, great. But then they need to commit, to do it frequently and of course they start small. But it doesn't make sense to do a recorded talk at a conference if you don't have any experience and do it only once. Like the speaker who writes a 10-liner C++, for what?? Who shall hire that C++ coding speaker? Oh wait, he could moderate a tech conference, because he wrote 10 lines C++... or maybe not.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      I don't think I was being aggressive. To the degree I was, it's because I do think--as an industry--we should encourage people who don't consider themselves part of the established elite to put themselves out in public. And I know tons of people who do public speaking where it isn't a career path or even (really) their primary day job--a number of whom are quite good about it. Of course, if you have nothing to talk about you shouldn't give a talk. But I wouldn't discourage anyone who has something they want to share--even if it's unrelated to their day-to-day work or it's potentially trivial. It's frankly the job of the conference organizers to decide whether it's potentially relevant and interesting to attendees.
hotasice 7y ago
Long term lurker as well, but your comment comes off in bad faith. When you decide to try and break apart each point piece by piece to address, instead of his whole argument as a whole, it signals that you're only trying to argue for arguement's sake. Please don't do this, because it ruins the vibe.[0] In one enormous post, you have managed to tip-toe the line of civility with passive aggression, but also outright hostility "so arrogant," that it comes into question whether or not the GP's comment was directed at your specific demogrpahic: people that do things because they feel they want to, and not because they have thought it through. Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question: "What exactly are you aiming to achieve with this comment?" From an onlooker's perspective, it comes off as needlessly aggressive, but without clear motive. One could say the only purpose of your comment was to express that aggression, and not to spur interesting or novel dicussion. In that likely case, you are posting in bad faith, and as you said "sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all." [0] I've been around message boards since usenet. This behavior isn't new, and neither is it appreciated.
- tititi 7y ago
  If your assessment is that my comment was to express aggression, that would be correct. I thought about what I was trying to achieve and I felt that I didn't owe the OP any grace, since he failed to extend grace to the author of the post. My goal was to express how I felt about the OP's comment as directly as I could, so they could perhaps consider it the next time they want to make another comment like that. Whether or not being less aggressive would make my point more useful is a separate discussion, but at the time of writing the comment, I opted for a bit of aggression. And FYI, I've not spoken at any conference and I have no interest in speaking at one, so I don't think the comment was directed at my demographic, I just found it to be distasteful.
  - hotasice 7y ago
    I thank you for expressing self-awareness and civility in your reply. Emotions are what make us human. Complex expressions of neural impulses that manifest as many different feelings which move us to action. However, like any other impulse, the understanding of and their proper utilization, always brings greater utility to one's life. We can all agree that unbridled emotional expression -- that is the actions those emotions move us to do -- can become harmful by their unchecked nature. We can also all agree that emotions have a purpose, and to repress them is not the best of decisions. Then perhaps there is a useful middle ground. Call it, "emotion, but in moderation." That by stepping back and analyzing our emotions, what caused them to appear, and why we feel the way we feel, we can in-turn make better, more productice decisions. What flowers from this post, is of no concern of mine, but I felt moved to plant these seeds.

by tititi 7y ago

hnbreak 7y ago

My tone is harsh because bad public speaking significantly damages your profile => your career => salary => $$/year. ps: I just read your reply, in the meantime I edited/extended my initial post

ghaff 7y ago
Honestly, that seems like an overstatement. The same could be said for anything finding its way onto the internet that doesn't represent you at your current best. Maybe if you're a really bad speaker/writer/etc. and, for whatever reason, think you will never get better you should be cautious about doing anything that will expose you online. But I'd suggest simply improving might be a better approach. In the case of speaking specifically, if you don't start off giving maybe so-so talks at a Meetup, you're probably never going to get better. ADDED: To your example. So if your first C++ code doesn't hit it out of the park, you should just give up?
- hnbreak 7y ago
  Why are you aggressive? I am just saying public speaking is a core asset of a slightly different career path. You can follow this and there're many career opportunities, especially in tech marketing/dev evangelizing but it's a different path than being an engineer, coding all day or a managing engineer heading devs in the right direction. Holding good speeches is hard work and takes time. Writing good code, sketching solid abstractions is hard work and takes time as well. Focus on one. And if your code/repo/whatever got 100K stars on Github, then of course hold a speech, it will be easy because everybody want just to see THAT guy. It's complex and this notion, everybody should hold speeches yes, but a guide to speaking at tech conferences? IDK. If people like public speaking and want to center the career around it, great. But then they need to commit, to do it frequently and of course they start small. But it doesn't make sense to do a recorded talk at a conference if you don't have any experience and do it only once. Like the speaker who writes a 10-liner C++, for what?? Who shall hire that C++ coding speaker? Oh wait, he could moderate a tech conference, because he wrote 10 lines C++... or maybe not.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I don't think I was being aggressive. To the degree I was, it's because I do think--as an industry--we should encourage people who don't consider themselves part of the established elite to put themselves out in public. And I know tons of people who do public speaking where it isn't a career path or even (really) their primary day job--a number of whom are quite good about it. Of course, if you have nothing to talk about you shouldn't give a talk. But I wouldn't discourage anyone who has something they want to share--even if it's unrelated to their day-to-day work or it's potentially trivial. It's frankly the job of the conference organizers to decide whether it's potentially relevant and interesting to attendees.

hotasice 7y ago

Long term lurker as well, but your comment comes off in bad faith. When you decide to try and break apart each point piece by piece to address, instead of his whole argument as a whole, it signals that you're only trying to argue for arguement's sake. Please don't do this, because it ruins the vibe.[0] In one enormous post, you have managed to tip-toe the line of civility with passive aggression, but also outright hostility "so arrogant," that it comes into question whether or not the GP's comment was directed at your specific demogrpahic: people that do things because they feel they want to, and not because they have thought it through. Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question: "What exactly are you aiming to achieve with this comment?" From an onlooker's perspective, it comes off as needlessly aggressive, but without clear motive. One could say the only purpose of your comment was to express that aggression, and not to spur interesting or novel dicussion. In that likely case, you are posting in bad faith, and as you said "sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all." [0] I've been around message boards since usenet. This behavior isn't new, and neither is it appreciated.

tititi 7y ago
If your assessment is that my comment was to express aggression, that would be correct. I thought about what I was trying to achieve and I felt that I didn't owe the OP any grace, since he failed to extend grace to the author of the post. My goal was to express how I felt about the OP's comment as directly as I could, so they could perhaps consider it the next time they want to make another comment like that. Whether or not being less aggressive would make my point more useful is a separate discussion, but at the time of writing the comment, I opted for a bit of aggression. And FYI, I've not spoken at any conference and I have no interest in speaking at one, so I don't think the comment was directed at my demographic, I just found it to be distasteful.
- hotasice 7y ago
  I thank you for expressing self-awareness and civility in your reply. Emotions are what make us human. Complex expressions of neural impulses that manifest as many different feelings which move us to action. However, like any other impulse, the understanding of and their proper utilization, always brings greater utility to one's life. We can all agree that unbridled emotional expression -- that is the actions those emotions move us to do -- can become harmful by their unchecked nature. We can also all agree that emotions have a purpose, and to repress them is not the best of decisions. Then perhaps there is a useful middle ground. Call it, "emotion, but in moderation." That by stepping back and analyzing our emotions, what caused them to appear, and why we feel the way we feel, we can in-turn make better, more productice decisions. What flowers from this post, is of no concern of mine, but I felt moved to plant these seeds.