The 35 Stages of Creating a Conference Talk
You may well have heard of the five stages of grief, well in this blog post we’re going to cover the 5 stages of creating a conference talk. And then 30 more.
Before these five stages comes a crucial first step. It’s the one where you see a conference CFP, and you’re already at least 1.5 gin & tonics in because it’s 7 pm on a Saturday (or Tuesday, whatever). Before you know what has happened, you’ve come up with a suitably smart-sounding talk title and abstract, and you’ve submitted it grinning to yourself at your play on words. Then you get on with your evening and forget about it. You forget about it until, with a bit of luck, you get an email six weeks later that says something like, “Congratulations! Your talk has been accepted at <insert conference name here>.”
You cast your mind back to that Saturday night, but your memory is hazy. Still, it seems like a good idea, all you have to do is write the talk; the idea was the hard part! So you graciously accept the invite because it’s eight weeks away and then… read on.
Actual timelines may vary – not to be used as a project management tool unless you’re me.
Stage one – Denial
T-8 weeks, I bury my head in the sand and pretend that I didn’t just say yes to a conference that’s in eight weeks for a talk that I haven’t yet written.
Stage two – Anger
T-7 weeks, I start asking myself questions such as:
- Why did I say yes to this? What was I thinking?!
- This is stupid; I don’t want to do this/I can’t do this!
- I’m never submitting to a CFP again, ever.
Stage three – Bargaining
T-6 weeks, I wonder what the impact would be on my sanity and brand might be if I email the conference and say something like:
I’m sorry I can no longer make the conference because <insert suitable excuse here that clearly isn’t even true>
Don’t do this. It’s okay to think it though!
Stage four – Depression
T-5 weeks, I can’t lie, it’s not right. I have backed myself into a corner and now I have to write this (stupid) talk.
Stage five – Acceptance
T-4 weeks, FINE I’ll write the talk! This is usually when I start writing the talk itself rather than just putting notes together. However, there’s more to acceptance than meets the eye. For me this step can be broken down into 30 separate steps (yes, 30)!
- Write content
- Decide content is crap
- Write different content
- Realise initial content wasn’t that crap
- Tweak content
- Decide whole talk is crap
- Briefly revisit stage three
- Force self to write more talk
- Decide whole talk is crap
- Give talk to brick wall
- Consider talk might not be crap
- Rework talk
- Decide whole talk is crap
- Give talk to friendly face
- Accept whole talk isn’t crap, mostly
- Incorporate feedback
- Realise talk doesn’t match the brief you submitted
- Decide brief was crap, revisit stage two
- Overhaul talk and make it pretty
- Give talk to more friendly faces
- Incorporate feedback
- Practice talk
- Practice talk
- Practice talk
- Practice talk
- Practice talk
- Practice talk
- Give talk
- Decide whole talk wasn’t crap
- Vow never to do this again, until the next time
It’s not just me, is it? Hope to see you there!