DisruptHR Colorado Springs
My experience speaking with Exceptional Disruption.
This experience sits solidly in the top ten of my personal life and top three of my professional life! I talk about cats, the "F around and find out" guy, forced fun, and #PlayfulWorkDesign
I started BoredLess in July 2022. I networked CONSTANTLY and people had OPINIONS, lots of them - and so many of them were contradictory to the others. This is very common for startups - it even has a label: “mentor whiplash”. I took in every piece of advice, suggestion, and opinion and looked for patterns. The very first pattern was “you need to speak at DisruptHR”. So I got to work. If you’re like I was and are unfamiliar with DisruptHR LLC - you prepare a 5 minute talk (no more, no less) with 20 slides that ... AUTO-ADVANCE every 15 seconds.
It is a LOT of work. Especially when you’re me and spend countless hours on one idea, submit it, realize it’s not AT ALL the right thing, and email the organizers frantically begging them to let me change it. They were very gracious and understanding. When I get the chance to speak at another one, I will NOT be doing that again. (My first idea was karaoke and I’m still trying to find the right outlet for my rewritten songs about the risks of gamification at work).
Speaking of gracious and understanding organizers, they are all volunteers. All Disrupt events are designed, planned, and run by volunteers. But you’d never know it. They communicate so well while being kind and encouraging throughout the whole process. Each aspect was clearly intentional and designed with care. They even gave us a “Certificate of Exceptional Disruption” that now hangs proudly above my Master’s degree on my wall.
Back to the amount of WORK. HARD WORK. I don’t do scripts with my presentations. I was never one of those people that were good at memorizing poems and text in school. I’m barely any good at quoting lines from my absolute favorite songs. Yet, scripting is really the only way this type of presentation will work. Because 15 seconds per slide is not enough while also simultaneously being way too long. And did you really grasp the part about AUTO-ADVANCE? Someone else (the computer) has control of your slides.
Hours and hours of practice. Out loud, in my head, over and over and over again. My final practice was at Cerberus Brewing two hours before the event. I live in Castle Rock, a town just south of Denver. That morning I spoke at a conference in Aurora (east of Denver). I left there before noon and drove straight down to the Springs even though my house was only 7 minutes out of the way and could’ve easily stopped at home for lunch and a break… but if you’re familiar with Colorado, you’ll understand that it was April, so of course there were snow squalls in the forecast and I had to pass through Monument which is notorious for whiteouts on I-25. It ended up being a good choice because I was able to take my time, did in fact miss most of the bad weather, and was able to just relax for four hours. That final practice involved me writing down every word I was going to say from memory and I NAILED IT. So my confidence heading into the event was pretty high.
The Colorado Springs event was at The Pinery on the southwest side of town. An absolutely gorgeous space with views from every window.
One of my favorite parts about the process was getting to know some of the other speakers. The COS Disrupt team had chosen some amazing individuals and it was so uplifting and encouraging to meet them & chat before it all got started. One speaker got the numbers mixed up and thought it was 20 slides at 15 seconds a piece so she frantically practiced her speech at a different pace. One speaker hadn’t truly realized the auto-advance aspect and there was some minor panic. Some of us had a drink and wandered around avoiding any more practice, some of us stayed quietly and calmly in the green room repeating their script over and over.
It was a sold-out crowd and the energy was LIT. I tell you this audience was the COOLEST. They were genuinely excited to be there. At an HR event. To learn about HR things. After work, likely not getting paid to be there. Some people didn’t even work in HR! They had reserved seats for us down front and I wish I could say I sat there attentively listening to my fellow speakers but I continued to skulk the edges of the crowd (I just learned a teeny bit about my own human design yesterday and my “environment” is shores…and I’m all, I hate the beach, but shores can be edges and my mind was blown…that’s for another blog post). I heard at least half of each speaker’s talk though and everyone did SO WELL. Some of us were obviously nervous, but only at the beginning! I was (am!) so proud of all of us. I was to be first up after the break (which was a request back when I was going to karaoke and get the crowd back into energy) but I think that’s probably the most nerve-wracking spot (behind first and last). A lot of pressure bringing people back in from mingling and drinking.
When you watch the video, the first thing I say is “fun facts are not for introverts”. That has nothing to do with my speech. They gave each speaker an intro. They had asked each of us to share a fun fact that they could share with the audience. If you know me or have followed me for a while, you know I hate fun facts. So I told them they could say that “Acey’s fun fact is that she hates fun facts” and I think I said, “so do your people, fun facts are not for introverts”. It ended up being a really great intro because it had the audience laughing and I thrive on that energy. My first “shit, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say next” (because I had gone too fast on the previous ones) happens around 1:14, but I covered it with a joke and got some more laughs. I’m pleased to say it didn’t happen again! At least, not that I showed outwardly because after that I legitimately don’t remember the experience of the remaining 3 minutes and 30 seconds. If you look at my face on stage at the end of my last statement, the look on my face explains everything and absolutely nothing. Instead of smiling at the crowd and taking in the experience, like a normal human, I’m looking, slightly confused, off to the side where our organizers were standing and when I walked down the steps towards them I said something along the lines of “did I say anything right?” It was a super weird experience, but somehow still positive!
After mentally and emotionally managing a lot of people coming up to me saying how great it was and how much they enjoyed it and congratulating me, I managed to calm down enough to watch my new friend Christie’s whole speech (you can too, here; she wears a space suit and we had to workshop the last line to make sure it was HR appropriate). Then, Manitou Springs TedX approached me about applying. Someone asked me if I was an influencer (cue my intense and still persisting confusion). I was one of the last people to leave the building, drove the hour home, and slept HARD. (This was on a Wednesday by the way).
If you’re considering speaking at a Disrupt event, I highly recommend it. I’ve already applied for my next opportunity (fingers crossed for Denver!).
Edited to add June 2024. Since the writing of this post, I have done three more DisruptHR talks and I’m already planning two more scripts! (Where should I apply???)
