conference time

I wrote a couple of early postings about having fun at conferences with speeches etc. I was talking about a time when I was employed in a key role in a major company supported by a couple of personnel and feeling kind of untouchable. Now of course it’s just me with my own consultancy and I’m representing two fellow Directors with Sponsorfinder. Tomorrow I’m final speaker at a fairly big charity-related conference and it’s suddenly a bit more serious.

My good friend Carl from KG prepared the slide presentation for me. He’s a bloody hero. I’m hopeless, having always had folks do this for me previously. I’ve just finalised the speech itself to support the slides. I have to admit this is my first platform opportunity since last summer and I’m feeling kind of rusty. I’ve just re-read my speech text and it’s ok but about the most earnest and dully serious I’ve done in 15 years. There are a couple of lame quips and tons of examples of my work from years ago.

The thing is I’m a little too tired tonight to do a decent re-write. I’ll have another look at it in the morning. If inspiration fails to hit I’ll just leave it and see how I feel at the event. I don’t mind going free-style and junk the text but you need to be confident and well-practiced and have a good 45 minutes of speech logged in the memory banks. Is it still there? I’m not sure; why would I be writing this if I was uber-confident still?

Ahh let’s see how the mood takes me. It’s nice to feel edgy again. I’m lacking sharpness and a little nervous and I can work off that. If it all goes well I’ll be content; if it’s a disaster it’ll be tomorrow’s first posting.

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