My Flash on the Beach Elevator Pitch

Last week, I was fortunate to be part of the Elevator Pitch Session at Flash on the Beach in Brighton. The session is one of the most popular of the conference because of the insane pace and content density. And this year was no exception.

As I was sitting back stage waiting to go on stage, I didn’t see the other pitches, but judging from the applause and tweets that followed, everyone did a fantastic job.

Even though my time on stage was only 3 minutes, the amount of time I’ve spent preparing for it has been massive. In fact, I think it’s the most difficult presentation I’ve ever prepared because of the extreme time constraint.

As a further incentive for the pitch speakers, FOTB organiser John Davey announced that after the conference, the audience will be voting for their top 3 favorite pitch speakers to get invited back to do a full session next year. I can’t wait to see the results of the vote.

My pitch was very much on a non-dev subject; the art of presenting. I think it’s an overlooked, yet extremely important skill that deserves more focus. Making a good presentation can mean the difference between getting the contract or not for a freelancer – just to name one example. And creating beautiful presentations that convey the message clearly is a passion of mine. So that’s my reason for choosing this particular topic.

Watch the video

FOTB2010 – Trine Falbe – Elevator Pitch from flashonthebeach on Vimeo.

A few photos: (taken by Robert Turrall)

Also check out Marc Thiele‘s great photos of the pitch speakers, and Ubelly did some lovely hand drawn sketches of both the pitch speakers and many of the full hour talks. Refreshingly analogue :)

Thank you
Now, I’m going to do something very un-Danish. I’m going to list some of the tweets from the nice people who took the time to tweet about my pitch. I’m not sure you guys and gals understand just how much positive impact you have had on me, but you have. Thank you. Also a big thanks to those who came up to me during the rest of the conference. It means so very much to me.

Also cheers to Robert Reinhardt and the kind Jon Howard, who both mentioned me in the beginning of their talks. I’m thrilled that my message got through ;) And Jon, thank you for the compliment in your review of FOTB as well. (Btw, Jon’s talk was one of my top 3 favorites, but more on that in another post).

Finally, a big thanks to John Davey for having me on the pitch speaker list, and to the amazing crew of Tal, Chris, Andy, Rich and Neil who made sure everything ran smoothly. You guys know your stuff.

On an end note, I feel blessed to have met and spent time with old and new friends during my stay in Brighton. It really is all about the people :)