Write/Speak/Code is on a mission to increase the visibility and leadership of women and non-binary coders through thought leadership, conference speaking, open source contributions, career development, personal growth and self-care.
Workshop Content
Learn to own your expertise and present yourself and your accomplishments with confidence. This workshop will help you think more expansively about your knowledge and experience, laying the foundation for you to convert your expertise into thought leadership and become a conference speaker and open source contributor.In this workshop, you’ll go through a few exercises around our theme, “Speak Your Truth”, generate a list of topics you can write or speak about, present yourself as an expert, and get introduced to writing, speaking, and coding for open source. The workshop will also have new exercises for those who have previously attended.
Below are the notes I took from the session. I loved how engaging it all was!
Inspire/Describe/Want
5 things that inspire you
Nolan
Becoming a leader in tech as a Latina
How accessible the web is
Making software engineering more accessible
Mentoring others new to the field
5 words that describe you
ambitious
futurist
non-trusting
resourceful
idealistic
5 things that you want
more impactful job
more opportunities to speak at conferences
being recognized as a top person in the web industry
helping Nolan and my family succeed
a more sustainable democracy
Story You Love
The IT Crowd
All the people are working in IT and are super nerdy and awkward sometimes but very funny
They were seen as non-relevant and not as important since the show was made in the early 2000s but now we have a very small group of people actually end up with a lot of power
The 5 Languages of Love
It’s about understanding how different people communicate and express warmth towards each other
Applies to a lot of different people
Characters
3 characters that you relate to
Shuri from Black Panther
Betty from Ugly Betty
Hermonine from Harry Potter
Samantha from Dear White People
3 characters you want to be
David from AI
Idris from Luther
Boundary Bullseye
Think about your personal boundaries when it comes to sharing the truth.
Self
Nolan/Family
Internet/Strangers - via blog
Friends
Acquaintances
I am…
always thinking about the long-term goal
completely in love with my partner
feeling good about the relationship with my family
Latina
engineer
a unicorn
writer
speaker
resourceful as fuck
movie addict
I was…
insecure
too assimilated into American culture
not satisfied with my love life
preppy
a tennis player
a swimmer
a teacher’s pet
RPG game addict
What Brought You Here Today
Uber express - my driver was deaf and the people riding with me were chill and quiet - I was just texting with my boyfriend the whole time because he’s really funny in the afternoon
I got up at around 7 but stayed in bed until 7:15 am and waited to hear back from a company because they’ve been ghosting me basically
I then got ready and realized my laundry basket was still in my roommates’ room
I heard about it and want to make the most of my Saturdays. I’m still so early in my career that spending Saturdays developing myself is still pretty easy to do and doesn’t feel like I’m overworking myself
I grab any opportunities I can develop myself
I just saw it as an opportunity to develop myself like a long Meetup session
It’s also reassuring to be in a room full of all women and non-binary folks
I got into coding back in high school. I was set on studying biology but then I realized I didn’t love it enough to want to be with a bunch of pre-med students and that’s the path that most people were taking. Computers and biology were always my things so I decided bio-informatics. Then coding.
Timeline
2012 - got interested - started taking online courses through Codecademy and Code School
2013 - started studying computer science in college and my blog with basic dev tutorials
2014 - design, pet projects, prepping for coding bootcamps
2015 - first job, first talk, bootcamp
2016 - freelancing, mentoring, got my bachelors, lots of speaking and conferences, product management course
situation or problem that needed to be addressed was having trouble finding my first job/internship
what you did about it so I started with the conventional route of applying to jobs online but on the side, I was actually preparing to submit talks at conferences and Meetups
results of what you did I realized that getting a job interview right out of college without knowing anyone at the company and lacking that friendly intro is very difficult. And what happened instead is that after presenting on web design at a local conference, a few people reached out to me afterward and asked me if I was available so I was actually able to get three interviews from that one talk and it made all the difference.
strategic impact on the company they got a new hire
what skills or strengths did you use public speaking, passionate about web design
Persuasive Storytelling
What is
introduce your vision
not getting the job
What could be
play up the contrast
online postings vs alternative methods like Meetups in person and conferences
Call to action
presenting argument that acts on vision
there are other ways to get a job
Thesis Story
goes back to having alternatives ways of finding an opportunity