On June 24th, 2025 I did a talk for [[Toronto Tech Week]] at Evergreen Brickworks. The prompt for me was that the talk should explore, “the role of storytelling, lore, or design in terms of making [[Toronto]] win”, and it needed to be 3-7 mins, the expected audience was 1,000 people. I have never done a public speaking thing like this before. I tried to use this project as a way of understanding how to do something like this well based on my current skill level. I practiced a lot, got feedback from friends, and tried things I haven’t tried before. Here’s the talk:  --------- ### Insights (what I learned) These links are not public, but they are here because each point express what I learned in a simple way. - [[the creative process is about repeatedly making a mess and cleaning up]] - [[ideas improve when shared with friends]] - [[it seems like my best ideas come from joking around with my friends or posting jokes on X]] - [[humour is inherently relational and emerges from social interactions]] - [[finding the through line is how you clarify and strengthen your story]] - [[story beats work very well for my story telling style]] - [[each story beat is like its own emotional song]] - [[transitions take stories to the next level]] - [[combining powerful narratives with compelling visuals creates outsized impact]] - [[fashion shapes your identity and confidence in performance]] - [[preparation is an art form]] - [[flow state is the result of a lot of preparation]] - [[live performance demonstrates genuine skill and builds lasting confidence]] - [[friendships and shared moments are foundational to the creative process]] - [[working on Toronto should be framed as an infinite game]] - [[the right piece of media can illuminate potential within any given system]]