Aura vs Authority: My Talks approach
Hi,
I'm Brandon.
Aura farming. Aura gambling. Aura debt. One is an achievement. One is the difference between a great talk and a disaster. One is an unforgivable mistake and an unforgettable experience. Whenever I give a talk, I know the needle tiptoes somewhere between the three. And I have had my fair share of all three.
Early days - Chasing Authority
Back when I started giving talks, I read a lot about the tips and tricks to wow an audience. Probably watched a few videos too. And all seemed to gravitate around one thing. Command authority over the stage and the audience. Pretty solid ideas... but a disaster in practice. Maybe it was inexperience, or maybe a bit of stage fright, but I always seemed to forget my lines, my voice would be shaky and most importantly, my slides would be blurry. A real embodiment of Eminem's Lose Yourself. God forbid, you watch my TEDx Borrowdale talk. That is aura debt on tape. My Falling Walls Lab presentation? More aura debt. I swear to God, the early talks would have driven me to aura bankruptcy.
Root Cause
When I reflect on it all, the cause of all this was the fact that I chased authority on stage, yet my mind was not so sure that I could ever attain it. Lowkey, some stages were bigger than I ever expected, some audiences more experienced and some stakes so high. The authority, I thought I would get from copywriting my talks, cramming movements and trying to pace my voice and movements? It was nowhere to be found. I never reshared my talks to the world, because lowkey, I was embarrassed. Some days I wished the world could swallow me whole.
The common factor
When I look at it from my current perspective, my biggest strength was always writing. Choosing the right words to suit the themes or to sell the ideas. On paper, format was the only thing that could stop me, but content, research and delivery were on point. Boy, I could sell water to a well and come back with a pre-order.
"Boy, I could sell water to a well and come back with a pre-order."
The realisation
It took some time, but what I got to discover was that the best thing about my writing and applications was never the words but the perspective. When you see tech from a ghetto point of view - you value cost, access and immediate benefit; in the rooms that I got into, they saw opportunity, legacy and revolution. Two sides of the same coin. When they saw head, I saw tail. And I could describe tail better than them. So together we had the full picture.
The aftermath - authenticity
So I started speaking ghetto in corporate, then I spoke student lingo in industry and academic set-up, then it was Zimbabwe to the world and so forth. Each talk was me at the core. The audience didn't matter. I spoke what I saw and felt (more often than not, it got me in trouble). And the more that I did, authority was no longer a priority. Crazy enough, the majority embraced the voice (which was shaky at times), the views (which were sometimes wrong) and the person behind. Where I thought I needed credibility, my raw honesty still managed to gain some credit. After four or five times - your confidence and your game become rooted in your identity and not your act. One bad talk - I am from the ghetto. One good talk - I represent the ghetto. A bad day in the office (on stage actually) could be forgotten, a good one would be applauded.
Aura Farming
Then one talk in particular changed it all. DevFest 2024. Harare Institute of Technology. I was scheduled for a talk and then it got cancelled because of time. Some earlier talks and sessions had eaten into our time. My laptop was already packed and I had even told my friends that there was no talk. Then as the organisers waited for snacks to come (I had taken a sabbatical from GDG that year), they wanted someone to hold down the crowd. Suddenly I had a chance. It was after Tine (who delivered an amazing talk btw) and the time was a little bit flexible.
The start of the talk
... As I stepped to the podium, a few cheers came from a few friends as I set up and then I looked at the audience and was like what the hell, let's take them on a story. At the core of the story were three things:
- I am just like you, nothing special about me...
- ...I discovered this cool thing that I am talking about...
- ...It's making me look amazing (look, I am giving a talk - it could have been you)
The inspiration
The delivery was a bit from Ryan Reynolds' playbook. First we were not taking things too seriously. There was some self-deprecating humour. Then there were a few disses to an imaginary friend. Now the story was as follows. A year ago, a friend bragged to me about computer vision, etc. This year, I discovered that I can feed video into an AI... and get the same result. And then there was the repeated catch phrase:
Like a good student, I copied. I edited. And I pasted.
The delivery
Over the course of the next 20 or 30 minutes, I showcased how Google's AI Studio allowed me to test an idea and generated code for me to use. All I had to do was to copy most of it, edit a few parts and paste it. And it worked. Like a charm. From that moment, my talks now had one MO. Go on stage, smile (this is important - if it looks devious, much better), act like your talk is dropping forbidden knowledge, speak like myself and put out a disclaimer that this might not be the best way to do it - but it works.
But it was never enough
From that talk, I discovered that relating to the audience actually made them pay more attention. It built that sense of trust. BUT I discovered, I had an appetite for something riskier. Increasing the stakes on how the audience perceived me. Aura gambling.
So the next talk and all my subsequent talks started coming with disclaimers. Things that could possibly ruin my credibility, yet could help build rapport. The first line I still recall saying was:
I am not a 10x developer...
and before I could be rated and judged,
... but I am a developer advocate.
And I then went on to explain that I know sufficient code to talk tech. And as the session went on - I had receipts. Proof of stuff built (demo phase though). Then it went on and on:
I am just a self-taught developer in...
I am figuring my way out in this but...
I know vibe coding is not all that but as a vibe coder...
and so it went on and on. Like I said, it built elements of relatability with the audiences (most of them). But in some cases, you could see the organisers facepalm.
Why that will never change from now on
When I wear my analyst hat, I can pinpoint a few reasons why the approach has worked. Some which have nothing to do with me.
- Gen-Z is a freaking problem - They won't listen to you based on your authority and achievements. They want something interesting. Stories can spark interest, curiosity hooks them in.
- Being relatable matters more than being right. Mistakes are not crimes. Authenticity trumps being correct.
- Aura farming with a few catch phrases, flexing a bit and grounding your progress to easily replicable steps allows the audience to take something away.
That coupled with shock value, real insights and a dashing mischievous smile, has connected me to my audiences. And with that, I am not establishing myself as a subject matter expert. Just a boy, who discovered a cool thing and is excited to talk about it. And sometimes, I repeat sometimes, that is what the audience wants.
Let's connect via the following platforms: LinkedIn, on X as @Rogue0015, or check the Sessionize speaker profile if you want this signal live on your stage. And if you're new here, start with the talks — this blog is their echo.