alt Hacker NewsI once gave a short talk at Harvard. Nearly didn't because I was so intimidated by the crowd. Got through it, hardly able to read the room because of my internal dialogue of focusing on the content, and also convinced I was a fraud. Then I realized I went over my time limit by almost 50%. When it was over, my emotions were such a mess I logically thought I should try to cry or scream to let off the overwhelming negative energy I had built up. It was one unreal bucket of feelings after another. As I collected my clip board and bag, I walked to the side of the hall where I was sure I had seen an exit, someone dodged in front of me and put their hand out and introduced themselves and started asking questions about the talk. Took her card and suddenly there was another. It wasn't until maybe the fourth person when I realized there was a line of at least twenty people. Yeah, stop and say hi. Even with critical questions, complaints. Making a connection with other people is one of the most important things we can do.
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Thank you for sharing this!
Another very useful trick I learned for handling criticism, especially when you're standing nervously on stage and the critic is being unfriendly, unreasonable, and unlikely to change their mind about anything:
If you don't feel you can give a quick response in a way that will bring them to your side right away, instead of arguing simply keep a notepad handy and (visibly) take a quick note about what they said and thank them. Most folks that raise unreasonable criticisms at talks just want to be heard, and in my experience they may even suddenly become very friendly to you for visibly acknowledging their comments, opening the door for a productive and constructive conversation.