On Thursday and Friday of this week, Gillian and I will be attending SMX London - the SMX conference series' second European station. As opposed to the three conferences I've attended in the past (Pubcon 2006, SES New York 2007 and SMX Seattle this past June), I'm going to be taking part in a panel in London. I've mentioned this once before, but as I'm leaving tomorrow, things are about to get real.

I'm not actually terribly nervous about speaking in front of an audience: the video camera for Whiteboard Friday troubles me much more. I like the idea of having a room full of people whom I can actually see. With a live audience, you can make eye-contact, scan the room, gauge people's demeanor and their reaction to your presentation. You can make subtle changes to your presentation accordingly. The hot glare of the studio lights and the judgmental eye of the camera give you no idea of how many people you're "talking to" and give you even less idea of how they're reacting to your blathering.

And it's not as though I have no experience performing in front of a crowd. However, the difference between athletics and public speaking is that, generally, athletes aren't required to face their spectators. At worst, there'll be part of the stadium facing you, but it is fifty meters away and you don't have to look anyone in the eye if you don't want to.

As if you all couldn't guess, my panel at London is about linkbait. I'll be giving a brief introduction to linkbait, although I'm pretty certain that most people attending a linkbait session have at least an elementary grasp on the concept. Thus, most of my presentation will be concerning creating linkbait for the "real world," where clients aren't particularly keen on the The Next 9 Children's Characters That Should Come Out of the Closet, no matter how many diggs it would receive.

This trip is also exciting to me for a couple of other reasons besides being my first speaking engagement.

1. I haven't been out of North America since 2004. I haven't left the United States since 2005, when I spent three days in Vancouver, Canada. Which is... how to say this delicately... very similar to Seattle.
2. I'm from New Zealand, which still suffers from being Britain Junior, as well as being Australia's Mini-Me. I've not been to either of those places since 2003. That's a long time spent driving on the right-hand side of the road and not being able to acquire good fish and chips.
3. I wasn't allowed to leave the United States since my student visa ran out after I graduated from college. I received a work permit and then began the process of applying for residency, but if I'd left, I'd not have been able to return. Since my husband and my parents all live here, that would have been undesirable. Strangely, being allowed to live and work in the U.S. doesn't automatically allow you to re-enter after a trip away. That process requires more paperwork and more fees, so I just waited for the Green Card.
4. I've been to England twice before, but went to Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester. Now I actually get to check London out as well!
5. I have a strange fascination with long aeroplane flights.

Once I'm done with the conference, we'll upload the presentation to SEOmoz. If you're attending SMX London, I hope to see you in the audience! Please blog nicely about me - I'll try not to speak too quickly or with too much of a messed-up accent...