Over the years, I’ve attended many industry technical conferences. I’ve been an attendee. I held a whiteboard session that was livestreamed over the Internet. I’ve done video interviews. I’ve been booth staff. I’ve given presentations in booths. I’ve been responsible for the entire booth.

With all that, there are still a few things I haven’t ever done at a technical conference. I’ve never given a keynote speech (yet), and I’ve never been a guest speaker in a conference keynote.

Earlier this week, that changed when I accidentally ended up with a (very brief) speaking role in the keynote on Day 2 of the Pure//Accelerate event.

If you were there, you may have witnessed it, or if you were following the event on Twitter, you may have read about it more-or-less as it happened, but I’ve been encouraged to share the story of how it came about. Continue reading →