< talks

Book Me to Speak

Thank you for considering me for your event! I'm an experienced technology and leadership speaker who has presented to the senior leadership teams of multi-national corporations and thousands of professionals at major conferences.

About Me As a Speaker

I am very serious about my speaking responsibility. I aim to inform and entertain your audience. I will always come prepared for my presentation and bring a high degree of professionalism to your event. I enjoy interacting with the audience, in Q&A, a panel or one-on-one.

With enough notice, I am happy to prepare a brand new talk suited explicitly to your conference, or change an existing talk to fit more within your theme. I may choose to make changes to my presentation up to the moment I walk on the stage to make it a better fit for the other talks or more tailored to your audience. I commit that I will not execute substantial changes without your approval.

If your event is public, I am happy to promote it through my online presences, including sharing promotions with my network.

I am thrilled to let you share your recordings, and photographs of my talks. For public events, I do prefer to share my slides through my venues as this helps me track the analytics on my presentations and keep them up to date. I also ask for full-resolution copies of any photos of me that you take for my use, as well as copies of any non-public videos.

My Expectations From Event Organizers

I will do my absolute best to make your event a success. In exchange, I ask for the following:

A Code of Conduct

I want the functions that I participate in to be inclusive and safe for all participants. I will ask to see your Code of Conduct before the event, and I expect you to hold your participants (including me) to it.

A Diverse Collection of Speakers

I think that the best thing we can do as an industry is bring a broader diversity of voices into it. For events that I am part of I expect that organizers have made their best effort to include a diverse set of speakers. I would be happy to give up my place on a panel or my speaking slot if it would allow someone from an underrepresented group to have their voice heard.

Travel and Expenses

PANDEMIC NOTICE: During the pandemic, I cannot fully commit to any conference that will require large groups to congregate indoors. I also cannot fully commit to any conference that requires me to travel by plane/train. If conference organizers insist on holding an in-person event in a way that will put my or attendees' health at risk, I cannot participate in good conscience.

I’m an independent speaker without the support of a large corporation. So, I currently cannot sponsor your event. In fact, I may need my travel expenses to be covered by you. I live near Seattle, WA so this means that I’ll need my round-trip flight from SeaTac International Airport (SEA) and hotel paid for by your organization. If the plane flight is longer than five hours, I would appreciate if you would cover tickets at the Economy Plus or better level. If I am crossing more than four time zones, I may request an extra night of hotel so that I can be at my best at your event.

If your event is in the Seattle area, I will transport myself to your event and will not ask reimbursement for my travel expenses.

If your event requires a trip longer than two hours for me, I may request that you provide a hotel.

Reimbursement

Please reimburse me promptly. I try to make my travel arrangements well in advance to obtain the best prices, and delays in payment usually mean that I have to float the balance on my credit card over several weeks. I prefer to pay my credit card off in full every month, so this is a big inconvenience for me. I understand that some organizers want to wait until after the event to reimburse speakers, but this can be a significant burden, especially for speakers who do several conferences a year.

Payment

For public events where other speakers are unpaid, I will not expect compensation. For private events, please contact me through Nimble Autonomy and we can discuss.

Things That Help Me

I’ll bring a Macbook or Macbook Pro and adapters to connect it to most modern projectors. All you need to provide is the projector, screen, and microphone. I have a slight preference for lapel (lavallière), or headset microphones, but I am adept at using handheld microphones as well.

I generally prefer to present from my laptop. I understand the benefit for organizers to use a single machine for all presentations. When I show from my computer, with my remote, I am more comfortable. I will have tested everything in advance, and it will be a setup that I have used for dozens of presentations. If something goes wrong, I will be able to fix it without disrupting the flow of my talk. It also gives me the freedom to adjust my slides during the day based on what other speakers say. I am more than happy to synchronize with your techs in advance to make sure that everything will work as expected.

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