Mike Jolley

So I spoke at WordCamp Netherlands…

Last week I was lucky enough to attend WordCamp Netherlands in Utrecht, followed by a small WC team meetup in Amsterdam. It was great to talk about work, plan for the future, and meet new and old friends.

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(Some of) Team WooCommerce in NL

Rather than just attend the WordCamp I was actually a speaker. I presented a talk on user onboarding for plugins, using WooCommerce and WP Job Manager as examples and explaining the benefits and importance of a good first time experience.

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Big crowd. Yikes!

Being a bit of a sociophobe and as a first time speaker (!) I was extremely nervous. I’m still not quite sure how I managed to get the courage to do it, but a huge thanks to Barry for the encouragement, advice and support. 

Although I muddled my words somewhat, I think it went reasonably okay. You can watch my presentation below.

I’d love your feedback (both good and bad) if you watched my talk so I can improve in the future, assuming I ever talk again 🙂 Was it helpful? Did everything make sense? Did I waste 30 mins of your life?

Anyhow, thanks to all of those who attended!

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3 responses to “So I spoke at WordCamp Netherlands…”

  1. Isaac avatar
    Isaac

    Well done for doing the talk. I’d advise listening to the “Talk like Ted” audiobook by Carmine Gallo (I’m not affiliated, it just has good info in it). First tip would be, put minimal text on a slide, definitely don’t put text on a slide that you also read out. It’s dull and your audience are also reading it while you are speaking and it feels like being at preschool learning to read-a-long with teacher. Just say it yourself. Yes people will look at you while you are speaking, it’s called public speaking for a reason, get over it. Slides are for pictures, graphics, charts, video which you explain and elaborate on with your voice. Second tip: speak to the room, not your laptop. If you actually care about getting what you have to say across to people then you need to get them to go with you, not be thinking “he doesn’t present well” or zoning out because you’re not engaging them. It takes practice and everyone starts off rubbish and confidence builds the more you do it but study a little on the techniques, try and include one or two next time and I think you will be a lot better.

    Reply
  2. Lewis Cowles avatar
    Lewis Cowles

    Just one point, if guiding new users through a system would user-meta not be a better device than options?

    My rationale is that way you get every user, rather than the first to access each screen; or is this overkill in your opinion?

    Reply
    1. Mike Jolley avatar
      Mike Jolley

      Yes if its a tutorial like process – that makes sense.

      Not if its a setup process as that would only need to be ran once.

      Reply

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