Speaking: a meditation

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
~Dionysius Of Halicarnassus

I’ve been asked to speak at MagsU this June in Toronto on the subject of optimizing web content for search (SEO Toolkit: Put Search to Work for Your Magazine), which is very exciting — but also vaguely terrifying.

First, we all know that most people fear death more than public speaking, and while I’m probably not quite one of them, I get it. My husband has just started attending Toastmasters recently, and I’m considering joining him for at least a few sessions before I do the June presentation.

But secondly, the whole speaking thing makes me wonder who I am to speak on such things. I’m admittedly one of those people who apologizes when someone bumps into me or says something rude and I always preface my opinions with some version of “This is just my opinion, but …” so “speaking” on a particular topic, which implies that I actually know something about it, is just weird. I do know a few things, thanks to experience building a digital team and a bunch of magazine sites and making sure they get some traffic, and am more than happy to share, but I’ll likely still preface the whole thing by offering people the option to leave the room at any time if things get dull.