“was it worth it?” Enjoyed a nice talk with a friend today who assured/reminded me i didn’t “waste my time and effort” by giving endless talks & presos *every single time* was asked – especially in those busy Vancouver start up/tech days of [mid-00 ~ mid 10s for me].
From small alternative schools and community college clubs and classrooms to TEDx, SxSW, Pecha Kucha, WordCamp, Northern Voice… played ’em all *and importantly* was Mostly not under the auspices of a corporate day job employer or other business venture… I was out sharing my spiels purely for art, education and inspiration.
And… *dang near every time* anyone/someone reached out asking for advice or mentoring over coffee (never lunch, lunch is alone time) plus so many times doing the “let me pick your brain” free consulting sessions. Basically for nothing… Well, sometimes a $10 Starbux gift card (no thanks) but really all I wanted is a handwritten thank you card, or in the case of speaking gigs, audio/video that didn’t disappear.
Of course, I thought would keep building a *cough* career out of public speaking, keynotes, even consulting or whatever – as well as a series of essays, books etc.
Instead, I transcribed many of these spiels & cobbled together audio/video where possible + paperpoint slides and posted at my creative life archive.
Yup, powerful knowledge hiding in plain sight #free
So many years later, realize much of the (so-called) tech industry and “business world” is barely catching up to things that I thought were basic ‘table stakes’ and foundational *obvious moves* (so much done on little/no budget). And I loved doing this, pulling off seemingly impossible projects like it was no big deal.
I’m not one to pump my own tires but my goodness!
{e.g.: Recently listened to an interview with CEO Adam of Instagram/Threads with guru producer Rick Rubin and was quite stunned at the naivety of their discussion of international markets for example}
Anyhow, a recent note from Jess Sloss mentioning how the inspiration I flowed out – openly, enthusiastically, willingly – meant a lot to him and others got me thinking about the late night bus rides and my obsessiveness in making a brand new presentation for every single riff… and asking myself (quite earnestly) “was it worth it?”.
So if you were one of those humans that came to one of my dozens/100s of talks from Victoria to New Orleans to Austin to Bellingham – community colleges, marketing whoop-de-doos, alternative media brouhahas – whatever however, thanks for showing up and I hope we had a nice time.
PS For the collectors, curiosity-seekers, biographers and fact-checkers // a semi-complete rundown of speaking/prezo gigs (many have audio videos/other artifacts):
[not to be confused with media appearances, media creation, media kit – listed and inventory under separate cover]