Notes from Whitney’s Amazing talk “Evangelizing Yourself”

Notes from Whitneyâ€s Amazing talk “Evangelizing Yourself†http://www.slideshare.net/whitneyhess/evangelizing-yourself-1184852

by Whitney Hess http://www.WhitneyHess.comVisit Thisisindexed.com – great simple life graphics

Access to most challenging projects & hardest problems

Practice

“Common sense is not common practice”

Play up your strength

Accept your weaknesses

Share expertise — blog

Focus —  focus on your specific skills, make them digestible, be honest, write often

Share new insights

Speak

Teach

“The opposite of networking is NOT workingâ€

Visit a general tech conference — talk about UX

School — GGU

Share ideas and opinions

Find people who inspire you

See what they do every day & find your own voice.

Twitter:

Reply to everyone

Avoid negativity!!

Remember: you are a rep of UX in the universe

Go big — build a network

Linked in:

Write recommendations for people you know.

Fully public profile

Connect to everyone you know

Follow and engage with influencers

Figure out why you are important — 1 liner

Facebook:

Proceed with caution

Weird for professional use

No clients, friends mostly, feels inauthentic if client connect

Link everything back to your blog

Use same email address

Use same username

Be findable — 1 person, loveable, smart, real

Accept invitations to social events

Seek out events

Organize your own

Tech events are everywhere: IxDA, UPA, meetup IA UX — start your own

Ask someone for coffee: when you do, you will be top of mind in their head — they’ll remember the meeting they had with you last week.

Carpe Diem!

Opportunities seized = life

Have a goal before going out

Pick one person in the room to talk to

David Armano

Fred Beecher — prototyping

Have a recent blog/article/book to discuss

Ask people to introduce u to others

Ask: “can you help me meet more people?â€

“Who do you think I should meet here?”

Carry your card.

Follow up.

Ask:  “What are you working on?” — remember it!

Make conscious effort to remember what matters to the other person: kids, etc.

We are all each other’s resources

Exude confidence

Negative thinking holds u back. Bury it

There are 3 kinds of confidence:

Confidence in yourself

Making others confident in you

Helping people find confidence in themselves

Recognize your past amazing work, be proud of it

Do things that are scary — they will not be scary anymore

Act “as if” pretend, do it often enough, it becomes the habit.

Be decisive!

Nothing is permanent, make decision, move on.

Be opinionated, support it when challenged.

Be willing to walk away from negative situations

Ask for feedback, listen to it.

No reason to be emotional, not publically!!

Admit mistakes — everyone makes them!

Shut up and listen: 2 ears and 1 mouth to use in proportion

Shooting your mouth off = your own lack of confidence.

Organize events

Mentor others (Coffee)

Give feedback and recognition linkedin recommendations

Connect the dots — synthesize what’s going on!!

Hope – Optimism – Enthusiasm

Cast a wider net

Don’t feed the trolls, ignore the haters.

Find your own happiness; pursue your life’s purpose.

Be reliable, grateful.

Follow your gut.

“Go forth unafraid”

I have empathy; I help people; I can help things that are broken and fix the real problems.

I want to affect as many lives as possible, harder problems, bigger challenges.

Helping people trade better — not fulfilling your life’s purpose.

Ignore haters — they are not very happy.

Remember why you are here!

Greg@DesignCaffeine@DesignCaffeinehttp://DesignCaffeine.com