Jenn Lukas — Front-End Developer

Jenn Lukas Slide Consultant.

Im starting a new business. Slide consulting.

You’ve got a keynote that needs some snazzing? I’ve got cat pictures with your name on it.

You believe there’s something missing? I’ll be here to add stormtroopers pictures and Museo Slab font.

You’ve got an illustration of a penis? Ill let you know that it might offend someone in your audience.

Its beginning to become a pattern.
Every conference I go to someone says something or has something in their slides and at least one person finds it offensive and next thing you know, #dildogate is a hashtag in your twitter stream.

It’s hard to be a speaker. Sometimes you’ll be up there talking and say something and think to yourself: did I really just say that? Trust me. I’ve been there.

And maybe sometimes it’s less a slip, and you put animated gifs of dancing vaginas of in your slide. At 1am, that might seem funny! And a lot of people will agree (perhaps me as well). Its a hard job to think of a universally funny joke that a room of 200 will laugh along with.

BUT you might also completely offend someone. And as speakers, when we get in the front of the room, we are the authority at the moment. People have signed up (and maybe even paid) to see us talk. And I think we all need to respect that.

We have different senses of humor. My approach is usually to cater to that and to err on the non-adventurous-dancing-body-parts side.

That said, you can still be funny! If you want to make a joke about nerds using the internets to look at porn, you can. But perhaps instead of having an illustration of a very naked lady (drawn very nicely, but still very full frontally), you have an illustration of some lemons with party hats drinking punch. Everyone likes a lemon party joke!

That one’s free! :$

Really though, we have all these standards bodies for other things, why not for nerd speaking ettiquette? I really want us all to get along and I prefer to go to conferences where everyone feels welcome and aren’t turned off by something that isn’t a crucial part of the fantastic content.

We’re all in this together friends. And Im sure no one wants to make anyone uncomfortable. So, feel free to reach out here (if you want to battle with my amazing spam content) or on twitter if you’d like to run any of these jokes by me and I will let you know if you making the ghost of Susan B Anthony cry.

Posted on October 20, 2011 at 02:43 PM in (108) Comments

Lucas with a “c”

I like that the credits on this poster make total sense swapped: Charlie Sheen is a shoe in for Winona Ryder look-a-like any day!
I would also totally believe that Corey Haim was Brandon’s girlfriend in The Goonies.

Posted on September 2, 2010 at 02:41 PM in (188) Comments

The Nerdary and other Updates

Yo friends!

I am now posting (at least) weekly over at The Nerdary about tech-related stuff, along with some other very smart developers (Mark Huot and Kenny Meyers).

Also, some new speaking engagements coming up:

1. I will be talking with some other Happy Cog folks at a Pencil to Pixel event, for AIGA Philly.
2. I am going to Berlin!! Yay! To speak at JSConf.eu

I’m very excited to head over to Germany. I’ll also be making my way up to Amsterdam after that, so maybe I’ll catch a few of you EECI folks up there!

Lastly, today I was featured at #9 on Mashable’s 15 Developer/Hacker Women to Follow on Twitter next to 14 very SUPER and SMART ladies. Totally rad.

Since I’m doing more dev writing at The Nerdary, I’ll probably be doing some occasional tech stuff here but also more talking about how Inception incepted fashion into me and now I can’t stop wearing my grandmother’s old scarves again, cause Juno looks so cute wearing them in the movie.

Also. Baseball!!

Posted on July 28, 2010 at 03:54 PM in (143) Comments

Who would win in a fight: Bill Compton or Eddie Money?

I don’t know, but Im pretty sure blondie in this video would eat Sookie for breakfast.

Dun dun dun….I love music videos with twist endings!!

Posted on June 10, 2010 at 01:19 PM in Common Radness • (116) Comments

Practicing for a 45 minute talk takes a long time!

…or 45 minutes to be exact.

Or close to it. If you’re rehearsing your talk while eating a cheese plate and watching the Phillies game, then it can take 2 hours. Or if your rehearsal is mixed with well-thought out feedback and thoughtful debate from your awesome coworker, one Mr. Mark Huot, then it takes closer to an hour and 15.

I’m pretty close to trying to get to that magic number, though. And really, really excited to be speaking at JSConf 2010 in DC this weekend!!

The conference was a blast last year, and put on by tremendously smart and awesome people.

Plus, I’m going to have that boat song in my head all weekend…which is quite alright in my book!
Pirate cruise!!!

Hope to see some of you folks there!

Posted on April 15, 2010 at 10:15 PM in (176) Comments