How writing helped me present better
I just gave two of the best presentations I’ve ever given at a conference. Standing room only.
Here’s how writing helped me do an even better job presenting.
Michael Zalewski (via Simon Willison) talks about the importance of writing online. It’s all about “synthesizing, refining, and incrementally expanding on what’s been said before.”
Here are the three ways my writing has helped my speaking.
- Refining and Expanding:
I had been refining and expanding on what I’ve said before. But by writing and publishing my thinking it made my presentations so much better because I had already thought about and written the content before.
- Questions
As I posted my thoughts online, people responded and asked questions. These questions pushed my thinking and helped me know what I needed to communicate better. They helped me identify holes that I had.
- Languaging
By writing my thoughts I’ve been able to come up with better words to describe my thoughts, and they have landed very well with the conference attendees.
Writing and publishing our content is powerful. I’ve been doing it for years, but not with much intention. This #ship30 practice has been really powerful for me.