Did A Bitcoin Talk Today - And It Was Very Well Received! 😄

Today I did the Bitcoin/Blockchain/CryptoCurrency talk, that I have been teasing on here.
I gave a lecture for peers at my local university, and it seemed most liked it!

And what a relief. I was a bit nervous about giving a lecture to my co-students, I must admit. I am studying what could most easily be described as design of interaction/digital media.

I promised to tell you all about what I did, how it went, and what went right and wrong - so here goes.

To begin with, I asked everyone, if they had heard about Bitcoin prior to me telling them about the lecture. Most had, but not all. Then I asked, how many felt they knew the basics, of how Bitcoin (or CryptoCurrency in general) works. Only a couple, felt they knew about that. Finally I asked how many had tried to use Bitcoin, and only one had a very brief experience.

I then knew firmly, that everyone was mostly on a beginner stage, and could proceed from there. I had prepared slides to show as well as a talk, but I wanted to be able to steer it a bit according to questions, and how well people seemed to "get it".

After those initial questions, I started stating very basically what Bitcoin is, and then I went on to a super brief history of its invention, leading into how mining works in simple terms.

Most people in the audience looked confused but interested at this stage. I went on to describe a few different Cryptos, including Ethereum, STEEM, BitShares and Dogecoin (just for fun to lighten the mood).

Lastly I talked quite a bit about the more philosophical or ideological aspects, if you cna call it such. I talked about the applications for the technology, and how a decentralized system, can be a win for everyone. Then I ended with a few current and future Blockchain/Crypto related projects, that I found interesting which might interest other students.

I of course ended up taking questions, which to me was the make or break moment. I knew in advance that the questions I got could reveal how well, the audience had understood my lecture.

To my surprise there were a lot of questions - some asking me to elaborate on future applications, while others didn't quite understand how to fit CryptoCurrency in with their understanding of "normal" fiat currency.

The only downside I noticed was that people were tired by the end. My lecture was after our "regular scheduled" lecture. Maybe I should have cut the question segment a bit shorter, because there were a lot of questions. However, I felt it was fair to give everyone a chance. The whole lecture plus questions took a bit more than an hour. I think it was good, that it didn't last longer, since people would have fallen asleep or cried from information overload.

What I have learned is that Blockchain tech is hard to "get", but once you "get it", you really see the whole (digital) world in a new and compelling way.

Overall, from the responses I got, everyone thought the lecture was great, one person even describing it as more captivating than other lecturers.

So I will definitely do this again. It was a bit of work, but the payout of seeing so many captivated people in the audience, and getting to talk about a thing I enjoy, was very much worth it. If you want to do a talk, on CryptoCurrency (or anything that interests you), just go ahead and do it.