Speaking & performing
Product thinking, working life and a microphone. I bring experience from building businesses and years of stand-up to talks that give people something to take away.
From Siberia to South Africa
A room full of founders has different questions from a room full of students. A good talk starts there.
Speaking has taken me from Siberia to South Africa, and to conferences, universities and company events in between. Product design, entrepreneurship, freelancing and communication are my territory—with plenty of stories from getting things right, and occasionally very wrong.
I can build a talk around your audience and the questions you want them to explore. Practical, thought-provoking and entertaining: I want people to leave with a useful idea, a little more confidence and a story worth repeating.
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Selected talks
Ideas from building products, working for myself and learning to hold a room.
These are a few of the talks I’ve given. Each can be shaped around the audience and the questions that matter to them.
Time, money and making room for what matters.
My TEDx talk draws on a lifetime of freelancing and trading time for money. It asks how we can build a meaningful life now, rather than keep putting the important things off until later.
Finding better clients, setting your rates and building a career on your own terms.
A practical look at moving beyond competing on price: understanding your value, choosing the clients you want to work with and building a career that supports the life you want.
What the adult industry can teach us about technology and user experience.
An unconventional look at how adult websites have shaped technology and user expectations. We explore what product teams can learn from those experiences, and what they suggest about the future of digital products.
Why research and design belong in the conversation before anyone starts coding.
For developers, managers and anyone who works alongside designers. This talk looks beyond the interface to show how early research, validation and design can reduce rework, improve the customer experience and help teams get the right product to market.
The freedom, the headaches and working for the most demanding boss: yourself.
Should you freelance? I share the good and the bad of working independently and managing two parallel careers, including the decisions and trade-offs that rarely make it into the success stories.
What stage time teaches us about presenting, connecting and holding a room’s attention.
Lessons from combining education with entertainment: getting past the fear of public speaking, connecting with an audience and making ideas stick. You don’t need to become a comedian to learn something from the stage.
Off script
A microphone is a wonderful way to find out whether an idea makes sense outside your own head.
Comedy keeps me curious about people. It also keeps me honest: an audience will tell you very quickly when you’ve lost them.
That instinct comes with me whether I’m on a conference stage or working with a small team.
Tell me about the people, the occasion and what you’d like them to leave thinking about.