On Community—and Toastmasters—at the Write the Docs Conference in Portland
I joined Toastmasters back in 2015 for one reason: I had recently moved to Oregon, looked around for events to go to near my home, and then recklessly pitched a talk proposal to an intriguing looking conference I found in Portland.
I admittedly should have done my homework about the conference before taking that step. It's a conference focused on writing documentation, specifically for a technology audience (i.e. just about anyone these days). As such, the Write the Docs conference may just be the best-documented tech conference in the world. So there was no lack of material describing the fact that I could have 'wet my feet' as a speaker with, say, one of the five minute lightning talks. But no, I had to go pitch a full talk. And, to my trepidation, it was accepted, and then I had to decide whether or not to go ahead with it.
I did go ahead with it, and I've been attending the conference ever since. I did a second talk in 2016. In 2017 I finally did a lightning talk -- about Toastmasters, in fact -- called "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Toastmasters (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)." Like every other talk at Write the Docs, it's available on Youtube.
Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend my 5th Write the Docs conference in Portland.
Conference organizer Eric Holscher did such a great job of (re)establishing the Write the Docs Portland community on the first morning of this year's conference. (If you want to catch a stellar example of community being built up for a conference, be sure to watch the first 10 minutes on YouTube.) The conference organizers have created and refined the community over the years, shaping it into a true model for inclusivity and civility.
Ingrid Towey was a speaker again this year, and in her talk, she mentioned Toastmasters. This is the second time I've seen Ingrid speak. The first time, she began her talk and promptly ran into technical difficulty with the slides. I was incredibly impressed when Ingrid went on to deliver her talk with grace -- and without her slides for the first 5+ minutes. (You can see Ingrid's 2017 talk with the slides added back in on YouTube and note the unmatching screen behind her.)
At the end of the day, we got to chat about her Toastmasters club (she's the president of one of Red Hat's corporate clubs, in North Carolina) and about Toastmasters in general. She credited her Toastmasters training for being able to handle the tech glitch with such grace back in 2017.
We talked a bit about the challenges that the corporate club in my area was facing with membership, and about how, after asking all of the club officers to describe why they stayed involved in Toastmasters, I'd suggested that the club emphasize how it strengthens and deepens the corporation's own family-oriented culture. This seemed to resonate with Ingrid, who indicated that it could be useful to promote Toastmasters at her company in the context of influence, as that is an employee competence that is valued at Red Hat.
What is your club's target audience, and how can your club community be seen as an asset to strengthen and deepen the values of that audience? At Write the Docs, a persistent theme is empathy for the recipients of one's documentation output. And the conference community strengthens and deepens that value through its Code of Conduct and in practice, both with those who are privileged enough to be on site for the conference, and with the greater online community. It shows. As another 2019 speaker put it on Twitter after the conference concluded, "That wasn't a conference, it was a family reunion."
I admittedly should have done my homework about the conference before taking that step. It's a conference focused on writing documentation, specifically for a technology audience (i.e. just about anyone these days). As such, the Write the Docs conference may just be the best-documented tech conference in the world. So there was no lack of material describing the fact that I could have 'wet my feet' as a speaker with, say, one of the five minute lightning talks. But no, I had to go pitch a full talk. And, to my trepidation, it was accepted, and then I had to decide whether or not to go ahead with it.
I did go ahead with it, and I've been attending the conference ever since. I did a second talk in 2016. In 2017 I finally did a lightning talk -- about Toastmasters, in fact -- called "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Toastmasters (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)." Like every other talk at Write the Docs, it's available on Youtube.
Image credit: Write the Docs, CC 2.0/some rights reserved
Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend my 5th Write the Docs conference in Portland.
Conference organizer Eric Holscher did such a great job of (re)establishing the Write the Docs Portland community on the first morning of this year's conference. (If you want to catch a stellar example of community being built up for a conference, be sure to watch the first 10 minutes on YouTube.) The conference organizers have created and refined the community over the years, shaping it into a true model for inclusivity and civility.
 |
| Eric Holscher introducing the conference Code of Conduct and organizers |
Image credit: Write the Docs, CC 2.0/some rights reserved
Ingrid Towey was a speaker again this year, and in her talk, she mentioned Toastmasters. This is the second time I've seen Ingrid speak. The first time, she began her talk and promptly ran into technical difficulty with the slides. I was incredibly impressed when Ingrid went on to deliver her talk with grace -- and without her slides for the first 5+ minutes. (You can see Ingrid's 2017 talk with the slides added back in on YouTube and note the unmatching screen behind her.)
 |
| Ingrid Towey speaking at Write the Docs Portland 2019 |
Image credit: Write the Docs, CC 2.0/some rights reserved
At the end of the day, we got to chat about her Toastmasters club (she's the president of one of Red Hat's corporate clubs, in North Carolina) and about Toastmasters in general. She credited her Toastmasters training for being able to handle the tech glitch with such grace back in 2017.
We talked a bit about the challenges that the corporate club in my area was facing with membership, and about how, after asking all of the club officers to describe why they stayed involved in Toastmasters, I'd suggested that the club emphasize how it strengthens and deepens the corporation's own family-oriented culture. This seemed to resonate with Ingrid, who indicated that it could be useful to promote Toastmasters at her company in the context of influence, as that is an employee competence that is valued at Red Hat.
What is your club's target audience, and how can your club community be seen as an asset to strengthen and deepen the values of that audience? At Write the Docs, a persistent theme is empathy for the recipients of one's documentation output. And the conference community strengthens and deepens that value through its Code of Conduct and in practice, both with those who are privileged enough to be on site for the conference, and with the greater online community. It shows. As another 2019 speaker put it on Twitter after the conference concluded, "That wasn't a conference, it was a family reunion."
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