The Mobile Presenter

Looking back at my year 2014, there's so much that I'm grateful for that I decided to write about it (since we don't talk about these things nearly as often as we should).

Early in the year, Garr Reynolds, from whom I learned so much about presentations and who has been a huge inspiration all along this journey of mine, recommended my ebook "Presenting for Geeks" in his list of 10 books to read this year. I mean, can you imagine me sitting in the train one morning, going through the list: "Hmm, this one sounds interesting. Haven't heard about that one. Oops, what's my book doing on that list?!" Talk about a wow moment. Thanks a lot, Garr, for this and for everything you did to make the world of presentations more bearable.

Another important milestone for me this year was the certification process with Ideas on Stage, which earned me a nicely framed certificate for "Presentation 2.0 Director". What this piece of paper represents, in addition to proof of skills, is getting insight into how a presentation agency works - customer relations, unexpected changes, frustration and joy; the whole lot. Not to mention that I caused Phil, Marion and Co. some frustration myself, by slacking off on my homework. Sorry folks, and thanks for bearing with me.

At the end of the year, I worked towards an important step for me: Quitting my day job. I've been in various roles in or around software development for all of my professional career. Over the last 2-3 years however, it became evident to me that my heart is no longer in it. Instead, I enjoy working on presentations more and more, by which I mean my own presentations, but mostly those of others, i.e. teaching the concepts and ideas for "better" presentations. I'm also enjoying organising events that feature great presentations, such as TEDxStuttgart, and working with the speakers there. So I came to the conclusion that it's about time to stop doing what I no longer enjoy and see if I can make a living from what I do enjoy. We'll see how that works out.

I'm grateful for my friends and family in supporting me in this step. Thanks for believing in me.

P.S. So, if you are in need of a presentation coach or know someone who is - I'm available :)

(Photo by yours truly: celebrating the completion of the Presentation 2.0 Director course in Paris)

"Grateful" by Dirk Haun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence.