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My Talk Filing System
19 October 2010
Read moreThree years ago, I had never spoken in public (I have video of that first attempt and all I can say is that I've come a long, long way!). Since then, I've done rather a lot of it. I've submitted countless conference talks, had the minority of those accepted, and prepared and delivered those that were. Not many talks have been given twice, but some have, and now some are getting rebranded since I am working for myself and can choose my own slide branding these days. All this adds up to a lot of content to keep track of!
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How to Be a Good Conference Citizen
30 September 2010
Read moreI get to a lot of events and the crowds at each one are different and there's a different atmosphere - but at every event there are people who are making the whole thing less enjoyable for everyone else. Probably a lot of those people don't much care what effect their behaviour has on other people, but if you want to avoid being one of those people, these are my tips:
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Celebrating 10 Years
26 September 2010
Read moreToday I'm celebrating 10 years dating the same man (since we're not married, we don't have an official anniversary but we celebrate this one). He'll be mortified when he realises I wrote about it on my blog but hey, this is important (and if you date a blogger, this is …
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Tips for Event Hosting: Content, Feedback and Socials
20 September 2010
Read moreThis is the final post in a short series about hosting events, based purely on my own experience and no specific expertise, in the hope that they will be useful to others doing similar things. If you are interested, you can read the first two posts, about preparing for the event and what to do on the day. This post is about some of the additional things about an event; sharing the content afterwards, getting feedback from attendees, and the most important bit - the social event.
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Tips for Event Hosting: On The Day
02 September 2010
Read moreThis post is the second in a series of three about organising and hosting events. If you're interested, you could also read the first post about event preparation.
As an organiser you should know exactly where you are going on the day and what you need. Namebadges (sticky labels and pen if nothing else) will be needed at registration, if you have tickets and need to tick people off then rope in lots of volunteers (it sounds like a lot but 3-5% of your total attendee count is ideal) and brief them, and spread out across as much space as you have so you can parallelise as much as possible - registration is always chaos because of course everyone shows up at once and causes a backlog!
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Tips for Event Hosting: Preparation
25 August 2010
Read moreI've been to a lot of events, mostly technical, software-related ones, and I've also helped organise a few as well. For people organising events for the first time there are definitely some pitfalls that might not be obvious until you actually, well, until you fall into them! I thought I'd capture my experiences into a series of blog posts, in case they can help any future organisers to avoid some of the traps. First up: what to do before your event starts.
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Something Special from PHPWomen
02 July 2010
Read moreLast month, while in Amsterdam to host the Dutch PHP Conference 2010, I was absolutely stunned (as in, completely speechless - that's pretty rare for me) to have my PHPWomen friends pull me aside and present me with something:
The inscription reads:
Lorna MitchellIn recognition of your extraordinary effortsPHPWomen … -
Looking Back at 2009
31 December 2009
Read more2009 was a funny year. I started it with a trip to South America, returning to a job I'd held for a year and was starting to feel settled with. I had grand plans for the year, for myself, my home, and my career. And at the end of the …
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PHPWomen Calendar 2010
02 December 2009
Read moreI'm halfway delighted and halfway cringing to announce that the phpwomen calendar is now on sale. This was a project organised by my friend and colleague Johanna Cherry, who saw an opportunity at php|tek 2009 to photograph the majority of the core PHPWomen members all in one place and …
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Are Games Just For Gamers?
26 November 2009
Read moreI'm a keen gamer, or I thought I was - but I'm also female and very busy, which apparently is outside the expected criteria. My preferences are typically for platform style games (Zelda) although I'll play pretty much anything that's easy on the eye and doesn't require superhuman powers of hand-eye …
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Accessible UK Train Times
31 October 2009
Read moreA very quick entry today to mention a site that I've been using a LOT lately and I know I will be relying on for large quantities of travelling right through November: Accessible UK Train Timetables. It has up-to-the-minute information, including platform numbers, and you can bookmark queries for the …
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Pigeon Print
21 October 2009
Read moreRecently I was working (I work from home) and I heard a really loud impact noise, like a football being kicked really really hard against something. At the moment my desk is in the attic, I looked at the cat, but he was asleep in the same room as me …