It’s no secret that I love to talk. If you don’t believe me, just ask my friends.
In particular, I like talking about the aspects of our industry I’m passionate about in front of engaged audiences. Last year, I spoke at some of web design’s biggest events, including South By Southwest Interactive, Future of Web Design, and Webmaster Jam Session. This year, I intentionally took SXSW off, in part because I was scheduled to give a talk on typography in Spain in April. That event was canceled, and now I’m left with a totally empty schedule of speaking engagements.
So, this is me, saying publicly, that I’m here and available if you’re looking for someone to talk at your upcoming event. I’ve talked in the past about typography, web standards, modern web development, and more. Besides presentations, I’ve participated on several panels and conducted a few half-day workshops. I’ve got presentations brewing in my head about purism versus pragmatism in web standards-based development, the role of Universities in educating web designers, and the state of the personal website in the face of Tumblr, Facebook, etc. I’ve also got kind of half-done workshops on getting started with Django and using the Blueprint CSS framework.
What’s more? I’m easy. I don’t require big speaker fees, my schedule is pretty flexible, and I’m up for traveling just about anywhere. I just wanna talk, yo.
So, if you’ve got an event planned and are looking for speakers, check out my speaking page, which includes a sample audio file of one of my talks, and hit me up if you’re interested.
001 // Yashh // 03.25.2008 // 7:26 PM
Yoo.. thats great. Just let me know if you are coming to california… I wish I attend a workshop of yours…
002 // Keri Henare // 03.26.2008 // 4:09 AM
You can always talk to me Jeff. It’s a pity that you miss going to Spain.
003 // Jared // 03.26.2008 // 11:41 AM
It’d be great if there were something going on here in DC.
004 // Luke // 03.26.2008 // 4:48 PM
Just start speaking somewhere… side of the road… middle of a crowded restaurant… who’s going to stop you?
005 // Jeff Croft // 03.26.2008 // 4:55 PM
Better question: who’s going to listen to me?
006 // Stevie K // 03.27.2008 // 6:09 AM
Just wave a copy of Designing with Web Standards and start shouting, I see it all the time in London (they may be holding a different book though).
007 // M. Jackson Wilkinson // 03.27.2008 // 6:54 AM
Jared raised the DC point. And as someone who organizes a lot of DC events (DC Design Talks, Refresh DC, etc), and is always looking for good speakers, I have to follow up.
I tend to organize events for limited budgets, because I’m populist like that. We end up with 100-150 engaged people who might not have been able to come for $300. Therefore, I look for speakers in the local area, so that I don’t have to fly anyone in, since it’s just not in the budget. It’s also nice to have regional folks talking at regional events, though that’s not always required.
Is that silly? Should I be asking folks who are perhaps in the same situation as you, Jeff (really wanting to speak, but not within reasonable driving distance) to speak at these kinds of events?
I’m happy to hook you up (I have something in mind right now you might be great for), but would you bite at an opportunity under those kinds of circumstances?
008 // Jeff Croft // 03.27.2008 // 8:43 AM
Hey Jackson!
I do usually need to have travel expenses covered if I’m going to speak anywhere I can’t drive to. That having been said, DC is a place I’d love to visit again (haven’t been there since I was a kid!), so who knows. Maybe it’d be worth an exception. :)
In general, I think you’re probably doing the right thing by focusing you efforts for smaller, local events on local speakers. That’s what we do for Refresh Seattle. However, we also try to be aware of when others might be coming into town anyway, and then mooch of their existing trip. For example, we had Eric Meyer speak at Refresh Seattle while he was in town for An Event Apart.
009 // Brendan Cullen // 03.27.2008 // 2:05 PM
If you ever find yourself unfortunate enough to be in Cleveland, you’re always welcome at the CWSA (http://clevelandwebstandards.org).
It’s really not as bad as everyone says it is (ok it is, but you won’t know till you’re actually here, and then you may as well come speak before you leave:D).
Come see the river that caught fire!
010 // Jared // 03.27.2008 // 8:17 PM
Jackson, DC Design Talks looked really good, especially given the price. Too bad it was sold out by the time I found out about it. Doh! I hope to see another one in the future.
011 // Damian // 03.28.2008 // 9:19 PM
It’s funny, I tried subscribing to your blog on my iPhone using smartRSS and it doesn’t show your topics just (…). That’s odd.
This is good news for me because given that fact, I always wanted to contact you in regards something of the sort so in the future I will.
012 // Steve Edge // 03.29.2008 // 5:10 AM
Web designers are usually a shy bunch of people, however promoting ideas we need yo speak publically no matter how scary!
If your passionate about your subject, then you will naturally want to talk about it!
013 // Keri Henare // 03.30.2008 // 3:27 AM
As well as the big Webstock events, there are also Webstock Minis. Tantek is doing a few of them in fact. I’ll go put in the good word for you.
014 // Markus // 04.02.2008 // 12:30 AM
If you would come to the:
“DLW Europe 2008” (Dynamic Languages World Europe 2008) -> http://it-republik.de/conferences/dlw-europe/
“Webinale 2008” -> http://createordie.de/webinale/
In the end of may in germany, I would be really happy - we would like to do a Django booth there, if I had such a good speaker for the Django project I would be happy (and Django spreaded more in germany)..
But I think I don’t have the luck you are there..? Altough - there are really great workshops and speakers there.. :)
015 // Bob Woggles // 04.02.2008 // 12:04 PM
Dear Mr. Craft,
My scout troop would love you to come and talk to us on the subject of knots and sticks. Please let me know when you are coming.
Kind regards
Bob Woggles
016 // Patrick Haney // 04.02.2008 // 12:17 PM
I’m with you on this one, Jeff. I’ve been trying to get on the speaker circuit as well considering my travel habits and have been lucky enough to be a part of SXSW (last year), DC Design Talks and a couple upcoming conferences this year. But I’m always looking for more opportunities (with travel expenses included would be nice).
I like your idea of having a page on your speaking experiences on your site, with an audio sample, to show what you’ve done. I might have to follow in your footsteps on that one.
017 // Jason Head // 04.10.2008 // 4:59 PM
I run Refresh Pittsburgh and had at least three people forward me this URL in reference to contacting you to see if you would be interested in speaking at one of our events.
When I look at the comments to this thread it looks like Cleveland and DC are interested too. Perhaps we should talk to you about a East Coast tour?
I realize you would need some help with the travel expenses to a city in the east coast, but what if you had a couple of different cities to visit in one trip? Could be worth discussing. I’m posting this as a comment to see what the DC and Ohio folks think as well…
018 // Jim Jeffers // 04.13.2008 // 12:52 AM
Refresh Phoenix is always looking for speakers - if you ever want to come down south I’m sure we’d be more than happy to have you as a guest. We meet the first tuesday of every month unless it conflicts with a nearby holiday like the fourth of July etc.
019 // Jeff Croft // 04.13.2008 // 9:30 PM
Jason and Jim-
If the details can be worked out, I’d love to participate in your respective Refreshes!