An Introvert’s Guide to Public Speaking

I’m an introvert.

I know, everybody says that. And every time I read it, I roll my eyes.

“You’re not really introverted, you with the public speaking, the podcasting, the 30 tweets per day. I’m introverted. I got scared to say yes in the school register and have deleted more tweets than I’ve posted purely out of shyness.”

That’s what rings in my head every time somebody mentions how introverted they are, and I expect something similar to be ringing through yours right now.

“You got scared to say yes in the school register? I didn’t even go to school I’m that introverted.”

I hear ya. Really, I do. It’s frustrating because it seems the more people say they’re introverted, the more it dilutes the challenges introverts face.

[author_more]

I actually think that all human beings are introverted in some way. It exists on a spectrum, with different factors triggering different worries.

There is one factor that everyone seems to face at one point in their lives. And that’s Public Speaking (yes, capitals. It sounds more scary with capitals).

I never thought I’d speak in public. But when Morena from State of the Browser contacted me to see if I’d like to submit a talk, I did it.

I wasn’t expecting the talk would get chosen.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting I’d actually go through with it.

But I did. And as with most experiences, I learned a few things on the way.

So here are five lessons I learned as an introvert speaking in front of an audience for the first time. You can apply these lessons for anything from a job interview to an investor’s pitch. Anywhere you’re trying to convince, inspire, teach or entertain. 

Having an idea is just the first step. It’s getting it to spread that’s the hard part.

Lesson 1: Do Your Research First

When I started planning my talk, I knew the subject I wanted to speak about: pattern libraries. At the time, I had only just started working with them and I thought they were the best thing since the iPod. So naturally, I wanted to share this with the design community.

So I started writing.

I wrote a lot about how great they are and why we should be using them. It was only when I’d finished I started watching some talks other people have done on the subject. 

The most recent one started like this:

“I think by now we’re all familiar with pattern libraries, so I won’t make you sit through another explanation of how great they are.”

…

She’d just described my whole talk.

It was only at that moment I realised everyone else has been working this way for a long time. It was only then, after 2 weeks of wasted work, I realised that I needed a different angle. 

So research other talks on your subject first to make sure you’re not just repeating old information. 

Research other pitches or your competitors and find out what they’re doing. Then do something different. Find a new angle and your audience will not only thank you, but they’ll remember you. 

Be different. Be the purple cow in a field of brown cows. 

Lesson 2: Write Out Your Talk

In the public speaking world you’re not meant to write your talk out word for word.

The way to do it is to write down bullet points and just let the rest flow. The idea is that you’ll sound natural, conversational and in the moment.

All great points of course and if you have the confidence more power to you.

I did not have the confidence. So I went against every piece of advice I’d both heard and read and I wrote my talk from scratch.

And boy, was I glad I did.

You see, I was already out of my comfort zone. Just the thought of what I’d agreed to do put me off my dinner (which is mighty hard to do!). I needed some form of safety net. Being over-the-top prepared was my safety net. 

If you think writing out your presentation will help, just do it. If you’re going for a job interview, write out some answers to questions you may get asked.

It doesn’t mean you can’t go with the flow on the day. If you’re nervous about freezing up half way through, it’s a really good way to give you the confidence that, should the worst happen, you have something to fall back on.

Keep it a secret if you want. I won’t tell. 

Continue reading %An Introvert’s Guide to Public Speaking%

by Laura Elizabeth via SitePoint

jQuery easypin – Simple Image Pinning Plugin

easypin is a simple and fast jQuery image pinning plugin. There are dependencies with the library jQuery easing plugin.

by via jQuery-Plugins.net RSS Feed

Cyber-security and the Case For Really Good Train Sets

It's sometimes easy for us to forget what a brilliant idea the 'staging server' is.

Every day we get to test our work on a perfect copy of our website, where our occasional, disastrous, site-killing mistakes have almost zero real-life consequences. If there's a mistake, we roll-back, fix it, wipe our brow and the outside world never knows.

Failure is a wonderful teacher – as long as it doesn't kill you during the lesson, right?

The real-world provides us with fewer risk-free chances to test. For instance, heart surgeons get one shot at a triple bypass. Road construction crews have to rebuild the highway while it's being used. I'm sure both would jump at the opportunity to complete their work in private before deploying the finished product.

Alas, that's the stuff of sci-fi for now.

There are some exceptions where teams get to test themselves in semi real-world scenarios. Car crash safety testing is an obvious example.

CyberCity is another I'd like to tell you about.

The Tricky Problem with Cyber-terrorism

Over the past decade, cyber security has become an increasingly crucial concern for governments around the world – and with good reason.

Today almost all of our critical civil infrastructure – water, power, transport, health – is intricately wired into our electronic networks. And unfortunately, that network is vulnerable to easy, low-risk and potentially devastating attacks in literally thousands of different places.

So while you're busily locking down your train system, they could be targeting your power station. While you're securing the airports, they could be tampering with your water supply.

It's like trying to keep ants out of a football stadium. Where do you begin defending something with so much surface area?

Apparently the answer is in a room in New Jersey.

The Rise of CyberCity

For the past five years, Ed Skoudis and his team at SANS Institute have been running an entire metropolis, complete with its own power-grid, airport, traffic management, water supply, hospitals, schools, and retail. There's even a dog sleeping on a veranda.

They dubbed it 'CyberCity' and it's the most accurate physical replica of a real, living city ever produced – albeit scaled down to occupy a 48-square area.

Ed Skoudis is a counter-hacker and trainer with a background in creating computer simulations, but CyberCity has unleashed his ideas into physical space.

Each item in the city is 1:87 scale but this is no toy. The tiny traffic signals are controlled by real-world traffic management software, and the model trains are coordinated by authentic rail coordination software. Each relay and sensor feeds their data into the kinds of software systems you'll find quietly running our world.

Computers in the tiny hospital record patients checking in and out while commuters tweet from the subway. Each inhabitant of the city has a unique name, address, and social security number. No detail is spared.

And every day, as the sun rises, the attackers come in. Their first task is to gain access to webcams positioned around the room. They then set about their mission to bring CyberofCity to its knees by any means necessary.

They might sniff the Wi-Fi at a cafe for passwords, overload the power grid, DDOS the air traffic control, or compromise the water filtration systems.

Continue reading %Cyber-security and the Case For Really Good Train Sets%

by Alex Walker via SitePoint

Quick Tip: Add ReCAPTCHA to Your Rails Application

ReCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse. A "CAPTCHA" is a test to tell humans and robot apart. This kind of service is important for websites or web applications with lots of user generated content. The test is easy for a human to solve, but hard for bots and other malicious software to figure out.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to integrate ReCAPTCHA to your Rails application using ReCAPTCHA gem. You will also see how to add it to Devise.

Continue reading %Quick Tip: Add ReCAPTCHA to Your Rails Application%

by Kingsley Silas via SitePoint

Access Hulu, Netflix, and More Anywhere in the World

Traveling outside of the country usually means a break from your favorite shows, thanks to geo-restrictions that block streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Unless you have Getflix. Get lifetime access for just $69 at SitePoint Shop.

Netflix is the fastest, simplest way to bypass geo-restrictions—instead of resorting all of your traffic through a different server, it only routes the traffic needed. The result? Top speeds and all of your favorite streaming channels. Watch TV, stream movies, catch the game, and listen to online radio without installing any software, no matter where you are in the world.

Grab lifetime access to Getflix now for $69!

Continue reading %Access Hulu, Netflix, and More Anywhere in the World%

by SitePoint Offers via SitePoint

Create a Dashboard Module in OpenCart

Uber Brand Experience

The 'Uber Brand Experience' One Pager features lovely parallax scrolling effects and well integrated video elements.

by Rob Hope via One Page Love