So, I had kind of a big week last week. Understatement.

It all started a couple weeks ago. On July 13, I got a tweet from a guy named Jon Yeo saying how much he liked my Ignite talk from last year. I told the Snook excitedly, “Ooh, he’s the organiser for TEDx Melbourne!”

@web_goddess Loved you Ignite Sydney talk https://t.co/N0rTBO0MTV

— Jon Yeo (@jontv) July 13, 2016

I replied thanking him, and pointing him to the updated version I did at SydJS in April. He said, “If you are ever in Melbourne, we would love to do a version of it for our event.” Pretty nice! I told him I’d let him know.

Buoyed with confidence, I decided to take a step I’d been thinking about for a long time. I emailed someone in the local tech industry that I admire, asking if she’d be willing to discuss possibly mentoring me. She wrote back and said yes! We scheduled our first catch-up for the morning of August 2.

Then on July 19th, TEDx Jon sent me a DM saying “Would you consider doing a 5min version for TEDxMelbourne on Aug 3?” I just about fell over. He asked me to send him my phone number, and he rang me a few minutes later. We had a very quick chat, but the gist of it was that yes, he really was serious and wanted to fly me to Melbourne in two weeks to deliver my 5 minute talk at TEDx. On his side he had to scramble to fit me into the program, and on my side I had to book plane tickets, update my talk again, and start rehearsing.

While that was happening, my friend Daphne mentioned that she thought my talk would fit in well at PubConf, an upcoming night of lightning talks that was part of NDC Sydney.  (Daphne was giving a conference talk at NDC.) She emailed the organiser Todd Gardner and introduced the two of us. On July 20, Todd wrote back to excitedly offer me a spot on the PubConf lineup on August 5th. So suddenly I was giving two talks in one week!

Embarrassment of riches today. Two speaking invitations – including TEDx Melbourne!!!! – and I'm doing a BBC Radio interview tomorrow night!

— Kris Howard (@web_goddess) July 20, 2016

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