Learning to Lead Out Loud: Building a Keynote in Public

I’ve sat in a lot of keynote rooms over the years. Some left me energized, and a few left me emotional. But the ones that actually changed how I showed up back at work, the ones that stayed with me, all had something in common.

They weren’t built to make me feel good for just an hour. They were built to hold up inside the work, when I returned to my district, my computer, and my mission.

Somewhere along the way, we started treating tailoring a talk for the audience as a speaking trick. Swap a story. Change a slide. Mention the city. Call it customized. But the longer I’ve led and the more rooms I’ve sat in from the front row instead of the audience, the more convinced I’ve become that tailoring your message for the audience is a leadership skill, no matter the size, location, or make up of the audience.

That belief is shaping how I’m building this keynote deliberately out loud rather than in isolation or with the belief that it needs to be fully polished from the start.

The Same Message Doesn’t Mean the Same Translation

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be pressure-testing the same core throughline in two very different spaces: a webinar with district edtech leaders and a national council conversation with system-level technology leaders. The audiences are different. The language has to be different. The examples must be different.

But the spine stays the same, and that’s intentional.

Why Inspiration Alone Isn’t Enough

Strong leadership communication is about translation. Leaders must understand what matters deeply enough that we can carry the core idea across contexts without losing its integrity. The work changes. The people change. The constraints change. And the message has to flex without breaking. This idea has been shaping my leadership work for years, and it’s a thread I devoted an entire chapter to in Capes Optional, Communication Essential.

Because leaders don’t lack an understanding of why their work matters, although that’s always nice to hear. Leaders need language that helps them do their work better and with more intention.

I’ve been presenting in rooms big and small for years, through workshops, webinars, panels, and conference sessions. Not as a straight line toward a keynote (that was never the goal), but as a steady build toward clearer thinking. Each room has sharpened something different: what resonates, what confuses, and what actually gets carried back into the work once the slides are closed.

This is where even talented speakers struggle. A talk that lands powerfully in one room can fall flat in another. And not because the idea is bad or the wrong fit, but because the translation failed. The audience isn’t failing to “get it.” The leader hasn’t yet met them where they are.

And if I’m honest, I’ve learned this the hard way: by watching good ideas miss the mark when the translation didn’t fit the room.

The Questions Shaping This Keynote

Building in public has forced me to ask better questions:

Those questions are shaping every decision: the stories I tell, the frameworks I emphasize, what I intentionally leave out. Leadership work is complex enough without being buried under platitudes.

This is why I’m resisting the urge to “lock” the keynote too early. I don’t want a talk that travels well because it’s generic. I want one that travels well because its spine is strong enough to be translated responsibly.

So yes, this keynote is still becoming. It’s unfinished by design. And I’m letting people see that process as a leadership practice.

Because the more I work on this, the clearer it becomes that the hardest part isn’t crafting a strong message. It’s resisting the temptation to deliver it the same way every time.

Real leadership asks more of us than applause. It asks us to listen, translate, and respect the reality people are walking back into. The core message matters, but so does the audience carrying it forward.

So I’ll keep building this out loud: testing it in a webinar with edtech leaders, sharpening it in a national leadership circles, and refining it through conversations that push the work forward. Leadership, like this process, is rarely finished.

If you were in the room, what would you need this message to help you do differently on Monday morning?

That question is shaping what comes next, and I’d love your thinking as I continue to build.

Because the best keynotes are built through translation, not in isolation.