I’m sharing this post on the TeachMeTeamwork.com website because so many in our community supported me in the following project (thank you all!)…

On February 19, 2013  I spoke at IGNITE Asheville. See my video below.

My talk was entitled “Adventures of a Geek Dad” and I won 1st place! The crazy thing is, I tried to back out of this event a couple of times. I honestly didn’t think many people would be interested in what I had to say.

Although I’ve given many talks, this one was among the most difficult to prepare for and deliver.

The difficulty stemmed from the format:  5 minutes long and slides auto advance every 15 seconds. 5 minutes is such a short amount of time. Every word counts.

Assembling my slides took way longer then expected because I realized I had too much to say in 5 minutes and that meant I had too many slides. I had to eliminate, pair down, refine, etc. Not easy for a guy that likes to talk a lot.

The event organizers (all great people) provided a speaking coach and she was AWESOME. Her name is Angie Flynn-McIver of Executive Repertory. Angie met with me one-on-one and listened to my talk and asked me to make a couple of simple yet important changes.

The biggest realization I had was how vulnerable I felt talking about parenting and doing geeky stuff with my kids. The place was sold out with 420 in attendance and I just wasn’t used to talking on a subject so personal in front of so many people.

Towards the end of my talk you’ll see me get a little choked up when the slide of my daughter’s thank you card is on the screen. That was a surprise. I practiced my talk so many times and not once did I have an emotional reaction to my daughter’s card. Sharing that image with hundreds of people really did get me connected with why I do this Geek Dad stuff – – it’s a great way to spend time with my kids.