Our Head of Digital Marketing, Emina, reflects on her crazy couple of months speaking at two major conferences – for the first time! Plus, shares the talk that made it possible.
LLMs, Nerves and Penguin Flashbacks
I’ve spent my whole career as a digital marketer in-house and have been an industry lurker for over 10 years now. About four years ago, I joined Vixen Digital, and today, the lurker is a speaker.
I vividly remember my first ever BrightonSEO at Brighton Dome, where everyone talked about penguins and pandas, and I thought, why the hell are they talking about animals….
Many, many Google updates later, and I was speaking at that ‘same’ BSEO stage! And, what an experience it was!
The talk was something very close to my heart: Scaling with AI (even though it’s actually LLMs!) responsibly. I got in as a sub-speaker last minute using a slightly tweaked version of my Women in Technical SEO Fest talk. No time to give it a proper face lift!
That first talk at WTSFest was a massive deal for me. It was a supportive, inclusive space filled with brilliant women and the perfect place to test whether I had something worth sharing. Turns out:I did! The feedback was incredible, and it gave me the confidence to pitch the talk to BSEO.
One week later: BrightonSEO Auditorium 2
A week later, I found myself standing on the BSEO stage. I shared real use cases from our work at Vixen Digital, tips for scaling audience research, and why responsible LLM use matters now more than ever.
After the talk, people came up to chat about their own LLM struggles, ideas, and experiences. It reminded me why speaking matters – it’s not just about delivering a talk; it’s about starting a conversation. And responsible AI is definitely a conversation we need to have!
So a huge shoutout to the communities that encouraged me to finally step out onto the stage: Women in Tech SEO, SEO Community, Neurodivergents in SEO, the Vixen Digital team, and everyone who messaged me with “you’ve got this!” when I was sweating over my slides.
If you’ve been sitting on an idea, lurking in the background, or thinking, “I’m not ready yet”- you are. Write the talk. Share what you know. Someone needs to hear it.
For me, next up is Search AfriCon in May. Followed by a long rest!
And, if you want to see the talk that kicked it all off, here it is:
