As a person I am very insecure. I struggle to introduce myself to people I haven’t spoken to before and this something that has often left me feeling isolated. This is especially the case when going to development meetups where often I haven’t known anybody. In this situation I really struggle to introduce myself so the majority of people I have spoken to at events are those who I have either seen speak (so I can ask a question to start a conversation), those that introduce themselves or I have been introduced too.

I think part of this stems back to being bullied in high school, so much so that I changed schools at the beginning of year 9. This was a terrible experience and it was during this time I changed from being someone who would express his emotions to someone who kept them to myself. since then I have had to relearn how to not keep these feelings bottled up inside and to express myself better. This hasn’t really helped with my inner confidence at all, while outwardly I may come across as a confident person, I still have these deep down insecurities which leave me often feeling worried unnecessarily about things.

Where there is one place I am confident however is in my coding, since I was 9 years old learning BASIC on an Acorn I have loved to code and I have been confident in speaking to others about it. After changing school at the beginning of Year 9 I found a book in my new schools library about HTML and I then launched my first website, which as I was 13 was aptly named Jonathan’s World. Ever since I have loved the web, I even attempted running a web hosting company when I was 15, then by time I was 17 I realised their was no money in it unless you can do it on huge scale so I got out of the hosting game.

With this confidence in talking about technology, I have tried to get past the awkwardness of attending an event by starting to talk at them. So far I have spoken five times, across three different web development events in London and not only have I had the opportunity to share with others what I know but I have also been able to build my confidence. What this has done is helped me break down this barrier as rather than having to introduce myself, I have done it as part of my talk and then people often approach me, whether to ask me questions or just to say thanks. With this I have been able to start real conversations, and make new friends which in turn has meant I have been introduced to many new amazing people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.

As a developer there are many different places we can talk about what we do, there are online forums, sites like Reddit, Twitter and even through GitHub but nothing quite compares to the interactions you get and the knowledge that is shared at a meetup or a conference. The bringing together of like minds is amazing, and it give you an amazing opportunity to share problems you might have faced, learn from one another and talk about the cool web things you are passionate about. I love to attend meetups like London Web Standards, London Web and Front-end London and if you find yourself at one of these events and you see me their, I would love it if you introduced yourself, and I myself will be looking to try being more confident in my ability to introduce myself as well. If your running an event like a meetup or a conference and you want someone to come and talk, I am always looking for places to talk so just get in touch, I am very easy to get hold of either through this site or on Twitter.

From talking to other people in the development community, I know there are others who went through bullying and/or are in the situation of feeling awkward and out of place when going to development events and as a community we have a duty to try and ensure everyone is included. So next time you see someone at a meetup or conference who you think might be feeling to insecure to introduce themselves, maybe you should introduce yourself to them, start a conversation because by being at the same event you clearly already have one thing in common, that you share an interest in whatever the talk is about. I think its up to the development community to make sure everyone feels welcome and valued because without the people that make up the community, there is no community.

Photo is licensed under creative commons, taken from GDC 2011 and hosted on flickr.

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