I recently spoke at Stack Overflow's Dev Days in Toronto. I started by saying that I am very shy and have difficulty going to networking events and conferences

I recently spoke at Stack Overflow's Dev Days in Toronto. I started by saying that I am very shy and have difficulty going to networking events and conferences where there are large groups, but that there's something I wanted to share, and it was important enough for me to climb up on stage and stand in front of them. A few people later thanked me for the candour, but on reflection just because that resonated emotionally with some people, that doesn't mean my talk was actually better. Perhaps the people who responded emotionally to my 'confession' were more attentive to the ideas in the talk, but it could just as easily be that they were distracted and absorbed less of the content. This post and the commentary from HN folks is giving me something to think about. Thanks everybody.