Attending WordCamp Antwerp 2016: Being a speaker for the first time

June 28, 2016

For a lot of people this may seem to be a trivial thing: yes, I will see a lot of my WordPress fellows, yes, I will catch up with what they are doing and yes, I’ll get the latest updates from the community… but it’s just another WordCamp, just another talk.

For me, it wasn’t anything like that at all. This was my first WordCamp as a speaker, and it wasn’t even in my own native language.

Sven Reyniers: WordCamp Antwerp 2016

It’s not easy to get accepted as a speaker

I’ve been pursuing this privilege for a long time. I’ve sent a lot of applications and I always received that fancy e-mail saying something like “We had lots of brilliant speaker applications – many more than we could fit in the schedule. Unfortunately…” Then I felt that hopeless feeling coming over me. And what’s worse is that they are quite right! You can’t imagine how many talented people apply for every WordCamp.

Well, this time, I was doubly lucky. Not only was I selected for a talk, but also for a workshop, and this time it was for WordCamp Antwerp, Belgium! I don’t usually feel nervous about speaking before an audience, but I have to confess that this time I did. Maybe it was the language barrier or maybe just because it was a first time deal, but I had nice people behind me. On one side there was my girlfriend, always supportive, and on the other Denise, from within the company, helping me from the beginning to get everything on the right path.

From the moment I arrived in Antwerp, I felt this was the perfect occasion. The organisers, Dave, Veerle and Tom, seemed to have everything under control. Nobody could tell that this was their first WordCamp being held in Belgium. They paid attention to every little detail and all I had to do was focus on my talks.

The first talk

Saturday arrived. Let’s talk about WordPress Multilingual ! I have to say that I was a bit disappointed; it didn’t have the result I expected nor how I had prepared. I was nervous. I talked too fast. On the other hand, nobody fell asleep and neither did I forget my speech in the middle of the presentation. Let’s call it even.

Time for the workshop

Sunday. It was time for the more technical talk. Themes that perform! It was a more challenging scenario. Even though I can say I’m a daily user of Grunt.js, there are other people out there who have created amazing things with this tool and I was expecting a lot of questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer. It didn’t matter – I was there for people taking their first step with this task runner.

Other than what I expected, it was more dynamic and I think people enjoyed it. Lesson learned: people love to know your personal experiences, not only what you know, but also what you have gone through. People share the same fears as you.

Leaving Antwerp

Dave Loodts and Andrés Cifuentes WordCamp Antwerp 2016

Besides all the incredible work accomplished and the remarkable organizers for this first WordCamp in Belgium, personally, I would say that this was an enriching experience for me. It’s amazing being on the other side, learning from extraordinary speakers, confronting your fears and realising that an area of expertise is never the same until you prepare a talk. If you have always wondered about proposing yourself as a speaker, just go for it. Choose a subject you love and think of yourself when you first started exploring that field and how hard it was for you. Maybe you can make it easier for other people!

WordCamp Antwerp 2016
@wordcampant
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