Here’s the deal.

Like a lot of other people, I incurred some huge debt in the last 5-6 years, which then started to expand under the weight of compound interest, and which I then spent a lot of time on the phone negotiating to minimal interest and reasonable payoffs over time. It has been going well, but with the recent changes in my life, it’s starting to cause trouble – right now easily half my income flies back out again to debt repayment. This is a problem of my own doing, and one I am fine living with, but part of living with something is trying to solve it, and to solve in it in a way you can continue to live with, and yourself.

I have no interest in industrializing Sockington into something that will shoot some sheckels my way – people have fairly unrealistic views of what the benefits of making a product based around the cat are, and the subsequent ruination of what is a very special thing for me. I’ve run the numbers, it’s not worth it.

I am, technically, employed by two different organizations at the moment, one full-time and one doing part-time contractor work. The second will fade out sooner rather than later. And, anyway, like I said, the debt is just crushing things even with what appears to be two streams of income. Oh, and for anyone checking against the documentary sales – basically all of that is going into a different debt repayment – the musicians and the kind person who lent money for the world to get 1000 more BBS Documentaries.

Great, now you know more about me and money than anything. But let me explain one way I am going to try and get out of it.

Ah yes, speaking engagements. This is where I would come to an event, some presentation-laden schedule, and Bring It for the purposes of education, entertainment and whatever else.  I’m willing to speak on events great and small, situations old and new, and tune the presentation for the audience.

I will, of course, continue to do events that I choose to for free or the amount they pay: I have presentations coming up for DEFCON, DerbyCon, and maybe a couple other.  But it’s less about the places that I commonly visit to do my thing, but about that all-important notice to other places that desire speakers that I am available.

I’ve spoken to rooms with 5 people, and rooms with 5,000 people. I do not get nervous on stage. I have given profanity-laced standup routines based on actual events:

That Awesome Time I Was Sued for Two Billion Dollars

And I can do totally clean, straightforward descriptions of situations, such as this Wikipedia critique given in London:

Mythapedia

A presentation I gave on HOW to give presentations is one of the links DEFCON and others point to for other speakers to see:

The Presentation Presentation

And I can provide other examples and references from organizers and colleagues as needed.

The reason I bring up all this hat-in-hand stuff and re-iterate what a lot of my readers already know about my presentations and presentation style is that I am asking you to feel free to bridge me out to places you never thought I’d go. I have encountered, here and there, cases where people are excited at the prospect of getting someone like me to present at their events, but they’re nervous or unsure if I’d even want to talk with them, or they’re looking for my representation, and so on. What I’m saying is, don’t hesitate – I’m available.

We’ll see what comes of all this.

Categorised as: housecleaning | jason his own self

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