This week I gave two presentations, which is funny considering how much I hate public speaking. The first was a demonstration of the social networking site the Table Project to a small crowd at my church (I blogged about that for the Table). The other was a Q&A on writing copy for churches at the Social Phonics Summer Camp in Minneapolis. To my amazement, the Social Phonics talk went on for an hour and a half.
I made it through both events (though nearly lost my voice after both) and people seemed to like what I said. I actually got some laughs and some tweetable comments at Social Phonics. That always helps.
I initially turned down the offer to speak at Social Phonics, but eventually I gave in to the pleading from Tony Jones. He offered to do the presentation as a Q&A if that’d be easier for me, and I was amazed at how much easier that was. It probably helped that Tony has some pretty good emcee chops, but I felt a lot more comfortable and actually knowledgeable as I talked and didn’t have to feel like Mr. Presenter Man.
I actually found all this presenting rather stimulating. I had some really good conversations afterword and was able to make some good connections, both network-wise and idea-wise. My list of articles to write for Church Marketing Sucks just tripled. Not that this introvert will be starting a speaking tour anytime soon, but sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone and discover that it’s not that scary.
Plus with techno-wonder Nick Ciske speaking before me and the aforementioned Tony Jones, it was like a Billy Graham reunion. Back in the day I used to edit the BGEA site passageway.org, Nick would code it and Tony was a contributor. We just needed Steve Knight and Matthew Taylor.
Congratulations! I’ll keep the Q&A format in my mind if I have to do something like that. That’s more comfortable for me too. I don’t like being the presenter person either.
Still trying to put up my blog/web site.
I want to order one of your books but I have no money at the moment. I’d actually like to order two of your books…the church marketing one and the adoption one. I’ve thought off and on about adoption for years. I have two sons of my own 10 and 13. Another son would be great….just don’t know how I could give him enough time and do all that God is calling me to do right now. God is calling me to a big vision and at the moment everyone is telling me (basically) it’s too big. That doesn’t make sense to me and how God works.
Hi again. I’ve started my website using WordPress and it looks good but I’ve had some difficulties. Number one is how to upload photos from my computer hard drive to the web page. I did it once and then ever since then it gives me an error message, even though I’ve made sure the photos are less than 100 MG. Any ideas? something about the directory not being readable.
Thanks for your inspiring site!