Last year I spoke at the Lead Developer, and this year I was excited to come back as an attendee. It was really great last year, but speaking is super stressful and always my priority is to give a good performance, so I sometimes don’t get to enjoy events I’m speaking at that much. Or I’m just too distracted by nerves and post-speaking-FEELINGS to take that much in!
Like last year, the event was AMAZING. An incredible lineup of speakers, many women. This time it lasted two days, which was awesome.
I live tweeted a number of talks.
- Heidi on the 7 Righteous Fights – wow this talk was amazing. So insightful about the things that if you don’t deal with earlier end up being incredibly painful later. And also hilarious.
- Duretti on building a healthy team. I loved this talk so much, and I’ll be sending the video to my team and encouraging them to watch it.
- Crystal on Imposter Syndrome. This was full of wisdom on the way that people – especially under indexed people – are made to feel that they don’t belong, and “imposter syndrome” as a manifestation of that. It also has some great tips for combatting that, e.g. asking a friend for 3 things you do well.
- Melinda on employee evangelism. I really appreciated this because it focused on helping employees build their own capabilities as speakers, or writers, and the benefits of hiring as a side effect of that. It gave me a bunch of ideas for helping people on my team.
- Laura on remote work. I’m super interested in remote work as someone who runs a remote team, and this talk was a really helpful insight into another person’s process and priorities.
- Camille gave what I think is her best talk yet on rebooting culture. It was incredibly honest about her own failings, and how she came back from them, and packed with insight.
I had an amazing time, and I hope to be at the next Lead Developer event – in NYC in February!