 So my name is Marta. That's my Twitter and GitHub handles. I'm a software engineer, and I'm interested in DevOps, and I'm currently unemployed. So if you read the talk description, talk, you might ask yourself the question, why do I? Why do me? Why does Marta hate fun? Well, I hope that when I finish, you will realize that I actually do not hate fun. Just a very small subset of it. So a couple months ago, I took part in a discussion about modifying a user group's code of conduct. And the discussion was very long and very difficult, and there were different views, obviously. And one person who opposed any modifications to a code of conduct presented an argument centered around free speech and quoted George Carlin, an American comedian, who ranted about a trend to soften language. And it got me thinking, why mention free speech and why mention words of a comedian in this setting? After all, we're talking about a programming meetup. And I do think that is important to be aware and to speak about how culture influences our industry. And in such a context, talking about free speech might be important and might happen. But in that context, I think that wasn't the case. And I think that oftentimes the actual issue is that we tend to forget that we organize, participate in, host conferences, meetups, et cetera, first and foremost to share knowledge. And continuing on the subject of jokes, there is a trend to confuse conferences with stand-up comedy evenings. Have you ever noticed that? I think that should I get a microphone, an extra microphone? So I think there is a, have you noticed this trend? I think I'm not the only person that has noticed that sometimes we really, I don't know, sometimes I'm confused when I'm at a talk. I don't know if I am at a programming conference or a stand-up. And it seems that we sometimes forget that sharing knowledge is what it's all about. And we started believing that the speaker needs to be exceptionally entertaining in the process of sharing knowledge with us. And I think this is connected with how we portray ourselves. Think about it for a couple moments. Who are we? We are young. We are hip. We are edgy. And that's how we portray ourselves as an industry, as a community, as early adopters of new technologies. And it's also built in oppositions. We are not like those Java people. We are not like those Microsoft types in suits and ties, tucked in shirts with their corporate culture. We're not like them. We are cold-driven. We are innovation-breathing. We are flannel-bearing. We are rugged, coding rock stars. And we still see that in job advertisements. And we see that on conferences. And I'll be honest with you, seeing another hip edgy guy on stage kind of makes me cringe. It's not original. Being edgy is not original. Being edgy nowadays isn't really edgy. What edginess, we believe that edginess means being controversial. But what is edgy on stage is actually very mainstream. It's just perpetuating all the stereotypes and all the negative isms that we see every day. And it has nothing to do with originality. And furthermore, this being hip and cool means that we allow ourselves and encourage ourselves to engage and cherish behaviors that are not associated with corporate culture. And this has, obviously, there are good things connected with it. For example, the fact that we don't have dress codes on conferences and that our events are generally more laid back. And this is good. But we still say or do things that would be frowned upon or found simply unacceptable in a corporate setting. And one of those things is cursing on stage. Now, I'm going to tell you something that you might find weird, but it actually happened. Last year, I had this conversation within a certain community. Where it's prominent members. It's kind of thought leaders. We're known for repeatedly using heavy language on stage to a point where they kind of created a sort of peer pressure to do it. It's kind of weird to believe that things like that happen in a group of adults. But it happens and it's good to have a strong vocabulary for when you need to express strong emotions like amazement, anger, frustration. But first and foremost, there is a time and place for it. And secondly, some people really go over to top and should we really do that on stage? So when you're standing on stage and you're cursing, for example, during your talk about Docker, it just makes you sound aggressive and will alienate you. People will not want to engage with you, especially if they disagree with you because they will be scared. And it takes away from your message. People will focus on your tone, not on what you're trying to say, and it will make others reluctant to speak. So the modern computer showman with his strong language, strong opinions, invited to speak at conferences because he will attract an audience, a very homogenous audience. He will help organizers fill their room, but the problem is he will fill the room with people just like him. Then people who are just like him will get inspired to get into conference speaking. And we will perpetuate the vicious circle of white, male, ego, dumb in our industry. And that is going to make people like me just literally go crazy and leave. Over half of women in technology will leave technology sooner or later at one point in their careers. Men do that twice, women do that twice as often as men, and there's a plethora of reasons. And I guess that seeing everything, seeing the same kind of people on stage kind of adds to that. And if everyone on stage looks the same, that will be what we desire and what we perpetuate. We listen to people that look like those people on stage. We hire people that look like them. We design people for people that look like them, and we will ignore anyone who doesn't. And the thing is that being a speaker has a lot of benefits. It's not only the financial stuff. Like, not often you will get paid, but sometimes you will. And even if you don't get paid, you will get a free conference ticket. You might get accommodation and conference organizers might cover your travel costs. That's also financial benefit. But apart from all that, you gain recognition and respect in your community. You mingle with influential people on speaker's dinners and do not underestimate the value of that. You might, during your talk, while being on stage, you might casually drop a, by the way, I'm looking for work. And you will have tens or hundreds of people instantly registering that and remembering that. And it's hard to say how many jobs in our industry are filled outside of the official recruitment process, but I found some data that LinkedIn collected based on their networks. And about a quarter of people in tech, in computer-related industry will be hired thanks to networking. So who will get hired if the most visible people always look the same? So at a conference like your camp, it might seem that I'm preaching to the choir because your camp is really different. But not every conference is like that. And some of you might consider speaking, but might be scared of a lot of things or just a couple things. But how about we all just agree to try something different? Just remind ourselves that more places can be like this place and that we can do something if we consider speaking or we can remind other speakers that there's a couple rules that we, if we all follow, we could have a more diverse community. So the first thing is that we should all relax and realize that there's no need to show off, that if we are on stage, if a speaker is on stage, it means that the audience will assume that there's a certain level of competence that got that speaker on the stage and that's enough. And despite what capitalism might tell you, exceptional is optional. Good is just perfect. It's, you don't have to excel all the time. That's not healthy. So we should realize then that fireworks, literal or symbolical or having a chorus of singers humming your anthem behind you during a conference talk or strong language and excessively strong opinions, they all aren't necessary for people to listen and to engage and as I said earlier, they often have the opposite effect. And let's remember that even though a lot of conferences in Europe and in the Americas are held in English, but that doesn't mean that every participant will be fluent in English and the English language or that they will be fluent in English culture. So if your talk relies heavily on memes, on TV series, on knowledge of TV series or obscure references to works of fiction, consider rethinking that because maybe some people wouldn't be able to follow and I'm not saying to completely drop it because I don't hate fun, but I've seen programming talks where it was all about applied memeology and I learned nothing from them. So my working title for this talk was you don't have to be funny to be a good programmer and I think funny is fun. I really don't hate fun, but fun is not a prerogative and not everyone can be the master of laughter and not everyone has a sense of humor and not everyone should be, it's perfectly okay. Like it's truism, but we are all different and in the end, people will want to learn about the topic of your talk and everything else is optional glitter except actual glitter, that should be mandatory. I'm not joking. So simply try to be a good speaker and there's a lot of resources on that so I'm not gonna reiterate them here, but if you want to sum it up in three points, it's to speak clearly, you should just speak clearly, rehearse and try not to get your egos then in the way between the audience and your message and Katie Sierra, some of you might know us, Sirius Pony has this great blog post about what not to do when presenting and at one point in that blog post, she writes, the problem is thinking that what matters in your presentation is you because unless you're a paid performer, a musician, comedian, motivational speaker, you are not the reason that people came to the conference and I couldn't agree more, I think that as long as we give in to the cult of heroes and showmanship, we will not have a healthy, thriving and diverse community, thank you. Great, are there any questions for Martha? Hey, thanks for the talk. It's more like a comment, not a question. I totally agree when it comes to the written part, for example, in job offers. I mean, you read things like, yeah, we want to hire the best of the best and everyone, I hope everyone says that we want to get more women into tech and we want to get more women into companies and you probably really don't get the women with these job offers. If you want to have women in tech, you probably just get rid of these silly job offers of these way of things. But I disagree, I mean, we all have our own opportunities but I disagree when it comes to presentation or the spoken word as I really like to be entertained on stage but if it's just spoken, I mean, yeah, we're super awesome, we're something like that, I like to say things like that but it's always with a wink and yeah, with a little bit ironic and I think that's okay and it's more meant like motivating other people and I think it's okay when you're on stage and you can catch something with your self-confidence and I rather like that but I mean, I was entertained by your talk and I wouldn't say that you are really showing off or bragging and so, I mean, there are different ways of presentation but I also like, I think I like entertaining kind of showmanship presentations, yeah, yeah. Thanks for your comment, well, maybe I didn't make it clear enough, I'm sorry, that I don't think we should drop all of this, I think that we just have maybe this push, this drive to, like I said, to be exceptional that if we just don't deliver a good talk, that that's not enough, that we have to excel and make people remember our talks for the rest of their life and the thing is that they will never, there is not a talk that you can give that people will remember for the rest of your lives so we should just chill maybe. So you're talking about the relationship between the audience and the speaker and I'm just interested to know, what do you think makes a good audience member? What makes a good audience member? Well, if it assumed, hmm, well, sometimes I'm too nervous to look at my audience but when I do, what makes me more nervous is when people sit with their phones which I'm also guilty of doing when listening to speakers means that I have, I can do two things at once but it is kind of sometimes discouraging but it's a small thing. I think that a good audience is in your top checking email and maybe waits with checking emails for afterwards and I guess that's about it. Any other questions, comments? If not, then another round of applause for Martha. Thank you.