Let's Ginger-Fi it!

Last week I finally did the thing I’ve been avoiding for years by presenting at a wireless event.

Did I pick a smaller one? Yes.

Did I pick this smaller one because it was not recorded? Also yes haha.

I submitted and was chosen to speak at the 2025 Wi-Co event in Montreal.
For those that may not know about Wi-Co, it is an organization that creates affordable and accessible local events for wireless professionals to connect, share knowledge, and network. It’s short for Wireless Community and seemed like a great first place to present because the wireless community has always been very kind and supportive.
Wi-Co was created by UK wireless experts Peter Mackenzie and Alan Blake. If you’d like to find out more or create (yes you can ask to host an event near you) an upcoming Wi-Co event, check out wi-co.org

Montreal is a quick 1.5 hour flight for me so I tried something else new. The fly up in the morning and back at night thing. It was interesting for sure.

I took the standard in my seat/on my way feet shot but also had to take one showing I had the whole row. Apparently not many people like to fly at 5:30am 🙂

Latys were the amazing hosts for this event (https://www.latys.ca/). You hsould definitely check out what they do.

Between the short flight and the hour time change I was able to beat all the morning traffic into downtown Montreal, take a little walk around the cobblestone streets, and find a nice spot to enjoy breakfast.

I actually ended up eating at a place that was right next to where Troy Martin (the organizer for this and other Wi-Co events in Canada) was staying. About two seconds after I took the window picture he appeared haha. He came in and kept me company and let me pick his brain about a few things.

After breakfast we walked just down the street a bit and it was time for Wi-Co Montreal 2025 to begin!

There were lots of the awesome wireless people attending and so many great presenters:

*TBD = Mae did a great talk on AFC
**Ignore the description under my presentation title. It wasn’t that haha.

As you can see I was scheduled for the 2:10pm spot. Lots of time to overthink how things were going to go. But….there was a technical issue with someone before lunch, someone else hadn’t made it yet, lunch was running late, and out of no where it was my turn 2.5 hours early! Ahhhh!

It actually ended up being better this way. When you just have to get up and do it, there’s no time to worry 🙂

I stole the picture Francois Verges took because it was the one where I made the least weird face haha. It was easier to see the slides then it looks but we turned all the lights on for pictures of people before they started.
The presentation went really well. People seemed to like it and had follow up questions which seemed like a good response to me. I won’t talk about it yet because I’d like to see if I can present it to a bigger conference down the road first. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll do another blog on it and all it’s eVA awesomeness. The intro slide in the picture gives you the summary.

There were so many great presentations. I posted a lot of them on my linkedIn page.

At the end of the day we did a group picture. Again, so many amazing wireless people 🙂

After that, it was time to make my way back home. By happy accident the wonderful Daniel Snell was heading to Halifax on the same flight as me, so he let me tag along with him and got us through all the evening Montreal traffic and to the airport with time to spare. He also let me hang out with him at the airport which made it a much better trip home.

So now I can say I did the thing. I spoke about something related to the wireless world in front of a bunch of the great wireless people I have been watching teach and present for so many years.
I’m really glad I was finally able to do it and now it seems like much less of a big deal.
If you’ve been wanting to give presenting a try and are nervous about it like I was, give a Wi-Co event a try. The smaller crowd helps, there are never recordings so no record if you stumble a little (I’m sure I rambled a bit haha), and the people there are really great and want you to succeed.
And then it’s done!