An extensive list of what helped me present

Dealing with anxiety

• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse... rehearse. I thought rehearsing too much would make my presentation sound like a "script" but I was wrong. The parts I had rehearsed the most (and I rehearsed a lot) was probably the ones I delivered the best. The reason, I think, was I could relax and only focus on delivery.
• I skipped the session before mine and instead went to my room and gave the presentation to the bed, chairs and curtains (in other words, no crowd). That really helped me relax. Also I noticed in my recorded rehearseals that when I gave the presentation a few times in a row, the first time was usually the worst. So I figured rehearsing once right before the actual presentation would make the actual one better and I think it did. If I interpreted Clair Moss, who delivered a kick ass presentation as well, correctly, she seemed to have had a similar strategy.
• It may sound weird/impossible but I decided it wasn't that big of a deal to present at CAST. I think this was simply a matter of convincing myself by repeating the idea over and over again. When I was actually there it seemed to work cause I stayed a lot calmer than expected and never really felt that "this is insane" feeling.
• I found it important to remind myself I presented to impress myself, nobody else. That made the whole thing a little less stressful as worst case suddenly became me being disappointed in myself rather than half the testing world being disappointed in me.
• Smile! It's weird but it really eases stress (for me)!
• I found there is a huge mental difference between "I'm scared and nervous, but I can do this" and I'm scared and nervous, I don't want to do this". Once again, repeat to yourself until it sticks.
• What if I lose track? Once again: rehearse and it gets less and less common! Rehearsing also helps in case you actually do lose track as you can much easier find your way back (losing track is not necessarily a bad thing by the way).
• Being a presenter is a possibility and only a possibility. I strongly believe (don't correct me, it would make me a lot more nervous .) people rarely remember a bad presentation but good ones stick. As a presenter those remembered presentations open doors, lead to insights (and good in that sense could mean an utterly failed presentation you learned a lot from), help you connect with people and raise your confidence. Bad ones are forgotten by everyone else so learn from those presentations (make them good) or forget them like everyone else.
• I try to always get to the location where I'm about to speak before my audience. For me it's a mental thing; if I'm there first it feels like they enter my turf, if I'm not it feels like I'm on someone else's and the former just makes me less nervous.

Dealing with being "in shape"

• Eat, drink (water!) and sleep. Sounds simple but easy to miss, especially when you're getting nervous.
• Beware of jet lag, try to get there a few days early to adjust.

Dealing with language
I'm not a native English speaker so I had an additional challenge.

• For every day spent in the US my English got better and better. So arriving a few days before the conference was a great.
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
• I found it much easier to spot weird things I said when listening to them in retrospect, so recording my rehearseals really helped improving my language. I didn't ask any native English speaker to listen to my recordings and comment on typical linguistic errors I make, but that could had been useful.

Dealing with creating the content

• I took on a way too big topic in the first draft of my CAST abstract, the one I finally sent in was focusing on only one of seven parts described in the first draft and still I had to shred a lot of content and could even had focused the entire presentation on one of the four parts I talked about. So beware of too broad topics!
• Peers are invaluable! Having someone reviewing my slides, content and even a rehearseal was key. The feedback I got from Helena was invaluable! And without Maria's feedback when preparing my abstract, I can't imagine I would had been selected to talk!
• Questions I asked too late that forced me to basically rethink my whole presentation was: What's in it for the people attending? Why should they be there? What do I want them to remember? What do I want them to feel? How can I make that happen? Before I asked those questions the presentation was fairly focused on me and what I thought was interesting not what I thought would be valuable to someone else.
• Rehearse! It's the only way to see if the amount of content fits the time given.
• Keep adding content all the time! It's much easier to shred or compress content to fit a time slot than to fill gaps.
• Not allowing my ego to take content decisions helped me a lot. People don't care much about how great I am but they seem very curious about my mistakes, embarrassments and problems.
• My topic was sort of an experience report. The great thing about experience reports is you're sitting on all the facts and information. That also fights anxiety as "I know what I experienced and if your experience differs we can discuss it but mine is still valid (just like yours)" thus, you're always right as long as you stay truthful about what you experienced.

Dealing with delivery

• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
• I recorded myself rehearsing and when I listened to the recording for the first time it just blow my mind! I thought I was varying my tempo and volume as I was presenting but realized ... I wasn't. My voice was monotone, I sounded uninterested and pauses were non-existent. Next time I will record video as well. (didn't video record any rehearseal this time, simply due to discomfort and laziness). If you feel like recording yourself is complicated, think again! I used basically the first free app I found for my smartphone and it worked beautifully!
• I forced myself to try very long pauses just to see the effect. That helped me realize the power of pauses (even though I felt I forgot that a little bit during my actual presentation). And the power? Personally I feel a well timed pause can help attendees digest my information and be ready for more and no pauses is a bit like reading a text with no space between paragraphs; it's exhausting and you lose some valuable structure.
• Listening to myself also helped me identify where I tended to ramble.
• I have three kids. As a way to prepare myself I read or made up stories for them and tried to tell them with as much energy as possible. Good way to practice storytelling.
• Actively using my body (using my arms to express something, move around, shrug, express what I'm saying with my face etc.) helped me "get excited"/get in my presenter mode.
• During rehearseals I sometimes found myself speaking faster and faster. The most efficient way I found to battle this was to just stop, make a long pause and kind of "reboot".
• As I rehearsed, I experimented with different ways of describing things, change order and vary the tempo. For me that led to some interesting insights, mostly related to pauses (already mentioned) but also how I could add energy to certain parts by raising the tempo/volume or better emphasize certain parts by saying keywords slower and and with a different volume (sometimes louder, sometimes softer, depending on context).

Dealing with remembering the content

• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
• Rehearse without slides
• Rehearse without any other tools (private notes etc.)

Dealing with making people come
I'm not much of a marketing person but...

• I wrote a couple of blog posts about the presentation. [1, 2]
• I spook with people at the conference.
• I spoke a bit about it on Twitter before
• I didn't do like Huib Schoots but god I wish I had! [1, 2]

Dealing with technology

• Rehearsing without the slides a lot helped me prepare in case the technology would fail me. Also I think doing this helped me to, with slides, look less at the slides while presenting.
• I booked a conference room for 1 hour every morning during the last 2 weeks before the conference. Being able to present with all the technology in action really helped, for instance I realized my computer was not well configured for attaching an external monitor. Also I got to test switching slides using my wireless mouse which took a little practice to get right (damn you scrolling wheel!).
• Triple check technology... and then check it once again.
• Oh, and US don't have European power sockets, luckily I thought of that.

Some CAST (CAST-like conferences) specific insights

• Everyone is there to learn so everyone wants you to succeed! May sound a bit strange but I've rarely felt more support as a presenter than I felt during CAST.
• K-cards may seem like a scary thing but in reality they are a great tool for me as a presenter to get valuable feedback and learn. Realizing that made them a lot less scary. The open season helped me understand if people liked the material, what parts seemed more interesting, things I might need to tweak/think more about, I got new ideas on how to improve the content etc. That gave me comfort!

My Top 3

1. REHEARSE! Thank god I spent so much time doing that!
2. Record yourself and analyze the content.
3. Presenting is an opportunity/privilege, not a punishment (usually), so don't make it so!

Last word

I wrote this post just under a year ago, on my way back from CAST. But I never published it as it seemed kind of silly for a first time conference speaker to share advice on how to prep an awesome conference talk. A few weeks ago I picked it up again and since it still made a lot of sense I decided to share it.

However, I would love comments from both experienced and inexperienced speakers on what I got wrong (in your opinion) or maybe even right (in your opinion), just to improve both this post and my own ability as a speaker.

Take care!

My CAST presentation

Slides
Handout (used during the exercise)
Skill Development List and Personal Manifesto

* The links are currently broken, unfortunately I cannot fix this until I'm back at work since I don't have the files on my home computer anymore. Stay tuned...
And credit to Srinivas for pointing this out!, thank you!

Feedback
One cool thing about presenting at a conference like CAST was all the feedback I got. First Ilari, Bernie Schroeder and Martin Hynie gave me some great things to think about/improve in the way I was presenting (avoid looking back at my slides, tweaks to my body language, tweaks to tempo and pauses). Simon Schrijver, Erik Davis, Phil Kirkham and a whole bunch of other people really boosted my confidence with their encouraging comments afterwards. Peter Walen, Brett Hinton, Jonathan together with several others asked brilliant questions and/or added valuable content during open season that helped me understand my topic even better and finally a handful of people from the audience shared stories related to my talk. All of you who attended: You really helped making my first ever conference presentation better both for me and, I'm sure, for the other attendees! Thank you!

Another kind of feedback was the recording. Listening to that helped me realize:

• It took me a while to get the energy going
• I had some annoying "ehh" and "and" early on
• My flow was really nice
• I should not interrupt the facilitator
• I've always been a bit annoyed with how my voice sounds but listening to the recording has helped me appreciate it instead.
• I felt several pauses was just a fraction too short (for me)
• Well rehearsed parts did not sound "flat" or "boring", rather the opposite, so I'm very much questioning if I can "rehears too much" which some people warned me about before.
• 26:13 (masochist "joke")... WTF! Still hurts to hear myself say... whatever I tried to say .)
• I felt my energy raised every time I made some kind of imitation (THANK YOU HELENA)
• The tempo was nice, could have varied it a bit more for greater effect but better than I expected
• I hardly rambled / repeated myself at all... once again I think rehearsals played a key role.

Forgotten part
Remember how I added balance in my 10 second summary of Yes Man (31:10 in the video)? Last winter I realized I couldn't just answer yes to everything. Sure cool things happened but that required me to spend quite a bit of time away from my family. That, after a while, became too much time away. So family has turned out to be something I need to think about before answering yes to too many cool things. Your balance might be something else like time with friends, time to sleep, travel costs, mental energy etc. No matter what it is, keep it in mind.

But that small addition was all I missed! Hurray!

Answering a few questions
I got a few questions I couldn't answer during the open season that I promised to get back to when I had been thinking a bit more so here we go:

Jonathan: Was there anything on you list you tried but you completely failed at?

Just before I started the list, at my former work, I tried to change how we tested in my team to make it more "Context Driven". I failed in so many ways, more or less putting the team in a position where noone knew what was tested, what was not tested, how well the testing had went and there was not a single document or statement that could help anyone figure that out, mostly because I didn't know either.

Later, actually partly thanks to the list, all that turned into one of my coolest adventures as a tester, but up until that transformation occurred it was a major mess up.

My way of dealing with it back then was to try and cover it up, which is not a good approach by the way. Afterwards though I quickly turned it into a learning experience trying to figure out why I messed up, what I could learn from it and what positive changes actually came out of it. I think that's my general approach to failures, accept what happened, accept I can't undo anything, try to learn as much as possible and move on.

Also, in my blog post from yesterday I spoke about my history of bad presentations.

Peter Walen: What is it you have done that you kind of wished you hadn't done

I don't regret anything I've done to myself or others as long as I or whoever I did something to, feel happy about their current situation. And if someone else feels bad I try to focus on what I can do to improve their situation rather than blame myself for something I can't change anyway. So far that strategy has worked out.

The story that still bugs me the most, that I can think about now, is when I was caught lying in like 5th grade. It was rather innocent, our teacher asked us about the temperature where we lived (don't ask me why). I lived far out on the countryside and we quite often had a degree or two colder than in the city. So I strategically grabbed a chair so that I would be asked last and always answered 1-3 degrees lower than everybody else. One day a classmate outsmarted me though and answered a ridiculously low temperature. I didn't notice the temperature he suggested was like ten degrees lower than everyone else's so I just answered like two degrees lower than his... and suddenly everyone started to laugh.

But like all the other stories that taught me a valuable lesson so I've come to terms with it... still hurts a tiny bit to admit though...

... From a testing perspective I can't really think of any... maybe that I didn't start to care about testing earlier but once again, my current position rocks so can't really feel bad about that either.

Simon Schrijver: How do you rebound from mistakes
I (and Simon himself!) answered that during the presentation but please check out the previous answers for some additional details.

Additional credits

Pekka Marjamäki
The kind and brilliant tester who offered me coaching before RST.
He will be speaking at EuroSTAR! Check him out!

Henrik Emilsson
Henrik provided the invaluable feedback that turned my "not so amazing Lightning Talk" into a kick ass learning experience.

Johan Jonasson
The person who helped me find my local test community, helped me survive my first peer conference and was part of founding Let's Test, what's not to like about him .)

Pierre Rasmussen
Mentioned during open season as the friend who shared his weekly reflections on Twitter. I have been too inactive for too long to say if he still does but no matter what he's a brilliant test-infected programmer worth checking out.

My success story, a story about failures

I have a lot of things to say about CAST, to people who would like to speak at a test conference, about personal development and about my own presentation. But first a few stories I want to share, hopefully busting any ideas about "some people are born to speak while others aren't".

Messing up a play

My first memory of something presenter-like was in 4th grade. 4th, 5th and 6th graders were mixed together in drama groups and something like once a month each group performed a play for the other groups. My group's first play was ruined. How? Well I couldn't shut up. I interrupted the other actors, screwed up jokes by explaining even the most obvious ones and was too nervous to remember any of my lines giving everyone else a hard time... The self elected leader of the group (a 6th grader) was furious when all of us gathered afterwards to discuss the play.

My first presentation

Moving on to 7th grade and the first time I presented to a larger group of people (~30). For this presentation each of us were given a famous author to talk about, mine was Charles Dickens. I was so nervous, but I had rehearsed a lot and prepared a rather detailed script so everything should be fine. I went up on stage, took a couple of deep breaths and said... Blaghl...bl..br, which unfortunately doesn't make any more sense in Swedish. I couldn't form a single word! I couldn't even say my name! I tried several times with every failed attempt just inducing more and more panic. Finally I threw away the script and just relied on my memory, which was no problem at all since I had rehearsed sooo much. When the torture was finally over several class mates came up and said: Wow, you were really calm when presenting... I was still shaking.

At the university

I volunteered to become a university ambassador. One part of that job was to speak to groups of high school students. One time the group was rather large, about a hundred people. I froze! I froze for something like 30 seconds (felt like 10 minutes) before I started and when I finally did I think I forgot to tell them like half the stuff I was expected to present.

Improving legacy code
Moving on a few years, now as an employed software tester. I had suggested a very vague idea, basically saying we had to work with the quality of our legacy code. So I was asked to present my ideas to the rest of the department. To make matters worse I got sick a few days before and due to that I had basically no time to prepare myself. I also knew that the material was way too abstract due to the fact I didn't really understand the details. Any professional would say: "I'm very sorry but I'm not ready to give this presentation" (a question I was even asked due to my sickness)... I didn't. The result?
"We need to work with the quality of our legacy code. A few things I've thought of izzzz...", what happened after that is a bit blurry but apparently one of the managers saw I was about to pass out and caught me before I fell, while someone else grabbed a chair. I got some water and actually finished the talk sitting down, still a bit dizzy... it was a memorable talk but not for the reasons I would have liked.

CAST warmup
Let's finish with a much less dramatic story. Just a few months before CAST I presented at a local test meetup in Malmö, Sweden. I would give a short talk on security testing. I felt calm until the moment I sat down in the room. After that anxiety rapidly (and for me surprisingly) built up. I think one of the main reasons was I simply hadn't rehearsed my talk. When Henrik Andersson offered us a beer I quickly grabbed one and it was perfect to ease the anxiety (something I haven't told him). However, knowing I "needed" a beer during one of my last public presentations before CAST was not really... comforting.

CAST 2013
Let's save this one for another post but short story is it went great!

Why am I telling you this?
Long ago I had the misconception that speakers at, for instance, conferences were natural talents who just had something I didn't possess. A misconception with an interesting twist as today I often hear people call me a naturally talented speaker. What I've learned, and hope my stories help you see as well, is that that something is mostly hard work. If you decide you want to learn to present there's no exotic gene stopping you.

Why am I telling you this... 2?
You might look at the stories I shared and say: "Why not focus on your successes?", but here's something cool: The stories above are my most important events as a speaker. Without them I wouldn't be in the position I am today as a speaker and if I sound insane, let me give you some examples:

Messing up a play

• I need to sometimes stop myself and simply shut up.
• I need to think about what's interesting to the listener, not just what I want to say.
• Being well prepared (rehears) is key!

My first presentation

• I can actually present.
• I don't need a script.
• Even the worst case scenario wasn't that bad (you could argue that passing out is worse than not being able to say a word but they're pretty close).
• There are things I can't seem to learn/fully understand without actually failing first.
• There's no such thing as a failure or success, we always fail to some degree and we miss out on a lot of potential success if we don't take the opportunity to learn from these small or big failures.
• As long as I rehears, things seem to work out okay no matter what.

At the university

• Silence is actually not that bad.
• Less is more, I forgot a lot of the prepared material but in the end that seemed to make what I said, stick better (based on reactions from students after the presentation).
• You can turn a bad start or problematic presentation into something great, it's never too late. This one actually turned out as one of my better presentations as an ambassador.

Improving legacy code

• Doctors didn't find any problems with my heart, lungs or head (obviously physical health was enough). That's actually quite comforting.
• Due to all the medical tests I had to leave a whole bunch of blood samples which eased my fear of needles and hospitals.
• ... and that taught me a valuable lesson about fear: Fear is much about not knowing the outcome, not about the experience itself. Understand that and a whole lot of things stops being scary (very, very powerful insight).
• I know my limitations better.
• I know when to say no better.
• I know the possible consequences which further helps me say no when I really should.
• I've learned the value of understanding the content I'm about to present.
• I need to rehears.
• I need to rehears.
• I need to rehears.
• I've learned code quality is much more complex than I once thought it was.

CAST warmup

• I need to rehears
• I need to rehears
• I need to rehears
• Open season with K-cards is actually not that scary (I had not tried that as a speaker before)
• Beer solves a lot of problems... kinda.

You can do it!
If you feel like presenting at a major conference would be cool but you hesitate since you're not a "natural speaker", Think again!

Practice
At work, local meetups, small conferences, at home or maybe checkout Toastmasters International (Credit to whoever gave the lightning talk about Toastmasters at CAST, just found out we have a local club where I live so I'll give it a try!).

Challenge yourself
Try new things, get out and speak in front of people, record yourself, test various formats, present without slides, try drama or stand-up, present in front of more people, present in a non-native language...

Wrap up
I think I'm a talented speaker today, and that's not just based on my CAST performance. But it has little to do with my amazing genes, it has to do with practice and challenging my limits. I'm pretty sure all your favorite speakers have similar stories (or at least I hope) and that their biggest secret too is practice.

So don't wait to become a great speaker, act to become a great speaker!

Oh, I forgot!
A key inspiration for this post as well as one of the real highlights for me during CAST, was Dawn Haynes' keynote. Make sure you check it out!

Oh, I forgot... 2!
During open season, several people asked me about my failures and how I dealt with them. Hopefully this post answers some of those questions. If not, please ask your question again (Peter, Simon and Jonathan were the ones I remember, did I miss anyone?).

Thank you for your time and good luck with your presentations!

CAST, A sneak peek

In my last post I promised to release a sneak peek of my CAST presentation. Even though I'm infamous for being too optimistic and missing deadlines, that promise will actually hold true.

So... what will I talk about?

The story
In May 2012 the first ever Let's Test conference was held.

When I heard about this conference it immediately grabbed my attention. It was just a train ride away, the tester's I wanted to meet would be there and the general setup felt spot on for me.

So I prepared myself to just bash into my manager's office and demand he sent me to this amazing conference but... that never happened.

Instead I convinced myself, I wasn't ready.

Just over a year has passed but in just a few days I will present at CAST; an opportunity I got thanks to writing an abstract just 8 months after missing Let's Test. Today I am the tester, I before Let's Test told others I wanted to be but never dared to become... All that is quite a transformation and how that transformation could happen is what I will walk you through.

Actual content
There are of course a million things contributing to this change, many of which are highly context dependent. But I will highlight four that I think have been key, and try to extract as much practical and useful content out of those as I can. I will actually not list them here but in my 2012 reflections, you can see all of them in action and some of them described. The big difference between that blog series and this presentation is I won't focus on what I actually did (like reading blogs, meet testers, change job etc.) but rather the mechanics that made them happen. To explain that I need an example so even though I said I wouldn't, here is one of the four "chapter": My skill development list. In the presentation I will explain the list in great detail including what made it work, what problems I encountered and how I dealt with them.

I want more!
Okey, okey, that wasn't very revealing but let me give you something that is: Here is my latest skill development list and personal manifesto. In common they have cliché names and that both are very much relevant to this presentation.

Also I can tell you there will be an exercise...

... You will be asked to answer several questions (to yourself)...

... and you will see this guy in many shapes and forms:

Thanks to IBM and Jojo Mendoza for the original pictures that made this guy!

If that's not revealing enough you'll simply have to come and watch my presentation: Making learning my top priority, at CAST.

See you there!

CAST, The story about an abstract

The Challenge
It was late in January. I was spending the Sunday with my kids and fiance visiting my mother. As we were eating my phone did that annoying sound it does when I get a message on Twitter. I ignored it and kept enjoying my visit. Little did I know that the annoying sound was the start of one of my biggest adventures so far.

Anyway, later that evening I finally checked my phone and found this tweet from my, soon to become, manager:

@Brickuz challenge for 2013! "@lperold: We want YOU to tell your story! - #CAST2013 - not much time left! http://t.co/sWF1NoRf"
— Maria Kedemo (@mariakedemo) January 27, 2013

The first thought that ran through my head?
"Yeah right! Like I'm good enough to do that"
When it hit me, I had had the same feeling about Let's Test, 8 months earlier and still regret losing that opportunity and 3 months earlier when I was invited to SWET 4 but that time I accepted the invitation and loved every moment. This was sure a much greater adventure but why not give it a shot?

@mariakedemo challenge accepted! (after a quick chat with my fiancee, condition was for her and the youngest to come with me if chosen ,)

— Erik Brickarp (@Brickuz) January 27, 2013

Getting started
When Louise Perold said "not much time" she wasn't laying. Three days to finish my first ever abstract for a conference talk, add kids to that and I was down to 3 evenings... and I didn't even have a topic.

As the theme for CAST was "lessons learned" I figured I at least had a shot since my career so far was much more about experimenting than reading stuff. After some thinking I came down to three potential topics:

• Note taking - Based on my blog post and further experiences
• Going exploratory - Me and my colleague at Ericsson turned a factory school test processes into a context driven approach in our team. It was an amazing experience with some really interesting results. I will share those some day (you can read a tiny bit here).
• Mindset - I had went from knowing nothing about testing to learn about testing and finally excel to become a tester with ideas others seemed to put value in. What made that happen?

The first one felt like something others would pull off much better (and after attending Huib's and Jean-Paul's tutorial at Let's Test I'm glad I didn't pick that topic). I could have focused on the experimental part but that thought never appeared to me.

The second one felt a bit... well, with me soon leaving Ericsson to join Maria at Verisure it just didn't feel right.

So I went with number three.

Writing abstracts

I have a topic, now let's write an abstract about it... what should be in an abstract? I scratched my head and started browsing around looking at various abstracts. Finally I just shrugged and started writing.

I sent my first draft to Maria for review. We both felt it didn't say anything about the actual content in the presentation so I started on my next one... two days left.

During day two I managed to produce two different abstracts, both having the same basic problem: They described a topic way too big to fit in a 20-40 minutes slot. So with one evening left it was back to the drawing board to either focus on some key detail in my current topic or find a completely new one.

Delivery time
I ended up focusing on a smaller but reoccurring theme in my previous abstracts, that by the way was about the mindsets described in my The year I became a passionate tester -reflections. I wrote and wrote finishing late in the night, making it a completely new abstract that Maria never got to review. As I pressed "send" in the submission form I didn't know what to think. On one hand I was really proud of my abstract, to me it was interesting and well written. On the other hand I felt it was probably having similar problems as my previous abstracts I just hadn't realized it yet.

A first hint
Maria told me she had been asked if she thought I would be able to pull off the presentation (I actually have a background as a speaker but in a completely different area). That question was an early indication that my abstract was at least considered. Suddenly things became real, I might be standing in front of a crowd six months later giving a presentation at a major test conference on the other side of this planet.

Announcements
Finally the day came when presenters would be announced. I had mixed feelings, one part of me screamed "Don't you dare picking me" while the other wanted nothing else in the world than seeing that email in my inbox. The first people started announcing they would be speaking at CAST. After a while it became apparent no such mail was sent to me and I just felt... emptiness.

A couple of days passed. Even though I should be proud of myself for fighting the urge not to write, and later send, the abstract, I still just felt emptiness.

Spam
Two days after the announcements I cleaned up my spam folder. Usually I just press "delete all" without even looking at the content (yes, I once did trust Gmail that much). For some reason I didn't this time. When glancing the list I noticed a mail close the top:

Dear Erik,

Thank you so much for your submission for CAST2013. We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected to speak. Details will follow shortly around the next steps.

Best regards,
Louise Perold and Ben Kelly

Hey Google, that's a really ugly trick! Don't you ever do that again or you'll end up like Yahoo after spam marking mails sent to myself.

So what's now
I've been working on my presentation for quite a while now. Not too long ago though I finally asked myself: "What's the goal? What do I want people to feel/know/do when they leave my presentation". That question forced me to somewhat start over but it's coming together nicely and will be great in August.

The presentation? Well it's named Making learning my top priority and you can read more about it in the CAST schedule. The plan is to post one more blog post before CAST and in that provide a sneak peak of what I will talk about but that's for another day. For now, thank you for reading and I hope to see you in Madison later this summer!

... Oh, and in case you wonder about my promise to my finance: Yes, she and our (now) six months old girl with come with me.

Take care!