Tell the speakers that you liked their talks

I spent a great chunk of last week at SmashingConf Freiburg and it was lovely as usual. It was great to meet some people I've only ever seen online and see old friends. And I am not going to lie - it was pretty flattering to have people come over to me and challenge me to admit I was the mystery speaker (SmashingConf always has a mystery speaker they only announce on the day). I wasn't, as you all know now, but thank you for thinking I am of that calibre! Anyway, at the after-party I was chatting to a fun group of people and one of them mentioned how someone else in the group really wanted to ask something to one of the speakers from this year but they were feeling shy and intimidated. I immediately encouraged the situation to happen (and it did)! It helps that I am a little bit shameless after a couple of drinks but facilitating speaker and attendee conversations is something I've been trying really hard to make happen whenever I can. So I brought the speaker in question and a few…