Life: Goals: Public Speaking – Word Camp Melbourne

When I try to picture the Jess of the future, happily employed and involved in my passions, I see myself working within the public eye.

Ideally, my professional goal is to develop the Make Yourself Network so that we can upload our lives online, market our individuality/abilities, develop ourselves and make a living out of what we live and love.

If I accomplish this, I can envision myself traveling the world to promote the network and connect with audiences on given subjects in relation to social media and marketing.

I feel I must prepare myself for my dreams of the future. I want to be able to speak in public, I want to be articulate, confident, funny and even moving. I want to convey meaning, I want to inspire.

Last week an opportunity arose. I submitted a proposal to speak at Word Camp Melbourne, a conference for Wordpress Bloggers. I sensed that I should take advantage of the opportunity to speak about one of my passions, social media, and get some public speaking experience.

Here’s what I’ve spent the last week pulling together as a frame. Now I must compile the research I’ve culled for each point and implement it into a Prezi presentation (I’m using the desktop tool, it’s awesome, look into it!).

Humans have been documenting existence and sharing it with the public since the beginning of time. Until recently, documenting the self has remained private matter. We have only begun to document our ‘selves’ in the public sphere since the advent of the internet. Life documentation is now a growing phenomenon.

There are social impacts to participating in networked publics. Publics play a crucial role in the development of individuals, especially youth generations.

The internet can be a powerful personal tool if used strategically but it can also work to our detriment if conceived mindlessly.

Thus, it is important to structure the information we make available about ourselves. There are many ways to use the internet and social media proactively.

My theory is that we can use online tools paired with life documentation to network and create opportunities for ourselves.

This presentation aims to teach users how they can digitize their lives through social media and blogging all while promoting, marketing and developing themselves online.

To be invited to speak at this conference was the least of my expectations and now suddenly I have less than a week to pull together a compelling presentation. I am feeling the pressure and am letting it get to me more than I should. I am taking a moment to write this so as to remind myself of a few things and boost my confidence.

I have interesting things to say, my ideas are relevant and hopefully even compelling. I am a cheerful, personable girl with great energy and I will totally rock this!!

I mustn’t dwell on the short amount of time I have to put this together, I should concentrate on the fact that this is a wonderful opportunity and something I’m totally capable of. But I MUST do myself a favour and allocate enough time to prepare for this properly. I have research, implementation, editing and much rehearsing ahead of me.

I can do this! And I will!