mission.html

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title: Mission
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<section class="content">
    <h2>Mission</h2>
    <p>The mission of the Speak Up! project is to assist in the guidance and
        mentorship of potential conference, usergroup and other <b>technical
        speakers, tutorial presenters and attendees</b>. We hope by providing
        access to mentors from <i>many</i> programming languages who are
        seasoned speakers, conference organizers, or other volunteers we can
        grow not just the gender diversity of speakers at technical events, but
        the diversity of speakers at technical conferences as a whole.
    </p>

    <p>Through positive, reinforcing, polite, and safe actions - we all can
        increase the diversity of voices in our communities, conferences and
        elsewhere.
    </p>

    <p>There's a lot beyond speaking at a conference/user group itself, that
        goes into a successful presentation and talk. These things include:
        <ul>
            <li>How to structure a successful talk.</li>
            <li>How to submit it to a conference or user group.</li>
            <li>How to find good conferences or user groups to speak at.</li>
            <li>which conferences make sense, which don't.</li>
            <li>Identifying past talks which were successful.</li>
            <li>Topic reviews, submission reviews (does it fit into the program).</li>
            <li>Getting leads, introductions and references.</li>
            <li>Keeping tabs and updates on call for proposals and due dates</li>
        </ul>
        We will try to help you with everything we can - but yes, in many cases
        the best way to get better at speaking in public is to <i>speak in public</i>,
        and many might say "go to toastmasters" or another group, while not entirely
        wrong as you can see above there's a lot that can go into a successful
        technical presentation beyond that.
    </p>

    <blockquote>
        90% of the battle can be won by becoming good at recording videos
        (without 101 takes), doing live webinars, or even setting up a regular
        YouTube channel. New speakers often battle with the responsibility of
        speaking and being the target of multiple people's attention for a
        solid block of time. These battles can be fought virtually.
        - <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859331">Peter Cooper</a>
    </blockquote>

    <p>We wish to help train and guide those who might be
        considering submitting a proposal, or those who are just
        setting on the road to speaking at a conference or user group and
        who wish to learn what and how to prepare to speak. This may include
        one on one mentorship, pointers to resources, in person mentorship,
        guidance to a local user group (in order to practice a talk in a smaller
        venue), connecting speakers with other training and outreach groups such
        as <a href="http://www.devchix.com/">DevChix</a>,
        <a href="http://www.pyladies.com/">PyLadies</a> and others.
    </p>

    <p>Additionally; our mentors and volunteers may be able to assist in
        connecting potential speakers with groups attached to a specific
        conference or community for additional mentorship and guidance; perform
        talk reviews, give pointers and other things - such as the polite push
        and encouragement.
    </p>

    <p>Potentially, we would like to be able to help provide a "burden of proof"
        on a given person's ability to speak, or presentation, being used as
        references for budding speakers when they submit talks to conferences
        whom frequently look for "known" factors such as community reach,
        popularity and speaking track records.
    </p>

    <p>Finally, our mentors and volunteers may be able to assist potential
        budding speakers connect to grants and outreach programs for specific
        conferences for assistance to attend and speak at a conference.
    </p>
</section>