Another wildly overdue announcement (well I mentioned it on Twitter, but not here on the blog):
My submission to the business/strategy/management track of IA Summit 2009 was accepted! I’m scared shitless and never expected it to be accepted, but I can’t wait to make it happen. The talk is titled, “Evangelizing Yourself: You can’t change the world if no one knows your name.”
Here is exactly what I submitted:
We devote our careers to advocating for our users, but who’s advocating for us?
No one is going to carry you through your career. If you want to make a major impact in this field, you’re going to have to work at getting recognized. And moreover, your name has to be synonymous with quality.
In this session I will help timid and unassertive practitioners come out of their shells and become leaders in the user experience community. The advice I have to impart is based on my own experience taking control of my career and developing an authentic and likable brand. I will talk about the value of starting a personal blog, actively using Twitter and LinkedIn to build and maintain a network, staying up-to-date with trends and standards, how to get the most out of conferences, and ultimately how to gain confidence in your skills and successes.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d like to see in a session like this. Please feel free to give any feedback you think would be valuable to me as I begin to craft the presentation. The IA Summit will be held in Memphis from March 20-22, so I only have about 6 weeks to put this together. Fear is starting to set in!
Also, I am proud to say that Sarah Rice‘s panel submission, “The Courage to Quit: Starting, Growing & Maintaining Your Own UX Business,” was also accepted. I will be a panelist along with Chris Fahey and Frank Ramirez.
Unfortunately this panel is scheduled right before my session, so it’s gonna be a long and stressful day for me, but hopefully all goes well and adrenaline keeps me going (especially since I don’t drink coffee)!
Thank you to ASIS&T and the IA Summit 2009 conference committee for giving me the opportunity to present my thoughts to my peers and mentors. It’s a true gift.
Check out the full IA Summit 2009 program and register to attend! I hope to see many of you there.
Related Posts:
- IA Summit 2009: The Courage to Quit March 29, 2009 | 1 comments
- My presentation at IA Summit 2009: “Evangelizing Yourself” March 29, 2009 | 6 comments
- SxSW: Our panel “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small” March 29, 2009 | 6 comments
- Rejected by EuroIA May 26, 2009 | 14 comments
- Holy crap…I gave the closing plenary at IA Summit 2010 May 10, 2010 | 2 comments
About Whitney Hess
Whitney Hess is a coach and writer helping product teams and senior leaders make better decisions through the principles of user experience. She believes empathy builds empires.