I’ve told myself for years that I’m not an ideas person.

This is really frustrating when I try to figure out a topic for a presentation at security conferences. I usually spend hours laboring just come up with the idea. With enough time and effort, I will usually find something.

This month I stumbled into a much easier way to find a topic and it only took a few minutes to create two CFP applications.

How It Happened

Last month I decided to try out Ship 30 For 30 as a way to get into a regular writing habit.

As part of this, you are supposed to write every day for 30 days. (Or nearly every day. Stuff happens.) I’ve been working my way through the program for a bit over two weeks. Some posts seem to get interest from folks, while others don’t. No big deal, I’m creating a habit.

Last week I remembered that the CFP for SAINTCon was open, and I had planned on submitting a presentation. Ok, but what do I want to share? I felt stumped. Again.

Then I looked at the small library of posts I had written and realized I had topics ready to go.

My Results So Far

It only took a few minutes to put together my presentation application, since I had already worked through the topic.

The flow of the presentation was written down and creating an outline of it was no problem. While I was at it, I saw that BSides Cache was looking for presentations, so I selected a different idea and submitted that one to them.

You could almost call this a shortcut, but it obviously takes work up front. My presentation ideas may or may not be accepted, but (as with most things) I expect I will improve as I continue to work at it.

 The lesson to me is that writing consistently creates a bank of thoughts and ideas to tap on demand. Huh. What do you know…