Thank you notes firstly…

Photo credit: Flickr username Sk8geek

Firstly, thanks to Dom (The Hodge) Hodgson for putting together another fantastic Think Visibility to great success, also thanks to “the team” behind the scenes especially @tnash @carolynlyn (thanks for keeping me calm Carolyn!). Also thanks to @KarynFleeting for her support during the event, it’s always nice to have a friendly face in the audience.

Big thanks for the instant twitter feedback from:

@tahera @StrangeLoops @SEOJuice thanks for the positive feedback, really appreciated guys!

Finally, thanks especially to @bebopboy (for filming me during my presentation), @chimpdonk, @joelturner for the great laughs & good hangover the next day!

The event

The event itself was even better and bigger than last year. I love going to Think Visiblity because it’s a great chance to meet people I follow on Twitter, who I respect in the industry and generally don’t get a chance to see locally in Leeds.

Myself and Joanne Bulter had a great chat about our love for Avinash Kaushik and his awesome book Web analytics 2.0. Always nice chatting with someone with the same love and passion for analytics as I do.

It was also great to hear from @walkerama that people actually do read my blog and in fact I’d go on to say Nick has the say passion and love for all things wine, as we were discussing my post 5 Examples of Beautiful Wine Websites

I went to see Stephen Pavlovich speak first, and I have already told Stephen this in person but it was a very good talk. Those who know me will tell you, I’m as passionate about conversion rates and website optimisation as I am social media, it was a funny deja vu though as me and Stephen met at Think Visibility 2, who knew we’d both be speakers this time round.

David Towers fantastic live blogging covers the points from Stephen’s talk well. I would like to agree with Stephen and say best practices aren’t all that, you really do need to test, test and test again! Just because a green call to action button worked for one client, doesn’t mean to say it will work for all.

I also enjoyed Andrew Burnett’s talk at the event as well.

My preparation

Before the event, I religiously planned and spent hours designing my presentation, but I can tell you with hindsight nothing prepares you for your first public speaking event. On the day off, my nerves were suffering and I couldn’t even keep my breakfast down but as I neared the time it seemed to get easier and watching some of the other speakers talk really helped calm my nerves. I can however totally relate to Paul Carpenter’s blog post on the experiences of speaking for the first time.

Finally in terms of my preparation, I also wanted to credit someone who has been a complete inspiration to myself in terms of how I design and present my slides. Garr Reynolds is the author of the book Presentation Zen Design and it was after reading Garr’s book and listening to his talks that I present and design my slides the way I do.

My keynote

Sorry it took so long people, last week was the “most” stressful busiest week of my life. In one week I managed to pass a major martial arts grading exam & undertake speaking at Think Visibility. I broke my own rule in social media about responsiveness, but I really needed a rest!

Why Social media? Engaging with customers through social media

View more presentations from Illiya Vjestica.