#CampDigital: 5 minutes with...Sharon O'Dea
Sales, Marketing and Events Manager
5 minute read
Sharon O’Dea is an award-winning digital strategist who advises complex organisations on communication, collaboration, and digital workplace technologies. She is also the co-founder of 300 Seconds, an event series that aims to diversify the tech conference circuit by giving women and speakers from underrepresented groups the opportunity to build their profile in a friendly and supportive environment. Camp Digital is proud to partner with 300 Seconds for the third consecutive year on a series of lightning talks. We can't wait until 3rd July, so we grabbed a 5-minute chat with Sharon about what she's been up to and what to expect from her session.
Your session is called 300 Seconds. Could you give the audience a bit of a picture of what to expect from the lightning talks?
The 300 Seconds session is a collection of lightning talks by new speakers. Each talk is just five minutes—that’s 300 seconds—and brings a fresh perspective to the conference. This really enriches the agenda and makes it more interesting for attendees. By showcasing and supporting new speakers as they build confidence and experience, we’re creating a pipeline of future conference speakers who will drive industry dialogue forward and become leaders in their fields.
This is my third time running 300 Seconds at Camp Digital, and what I love most is how, in just six or seven short talks, we get new stories and experiences we can all learn from.
Where did the idea for 300 Seconds come from? Was it a single moment or a gradual process?
Back in 2013, my friends Ann Kempster and Hadley Beeman and I were at a tech conference, sitting at the back of the room, noticing that once again it was an all-male, all-white panel, all saying the same thing.
Afterwards, we talked about why this happens. One big reason is that event organisers are busy and tend to go with speakers they already know. It’s less risky for them, but it means we keep seeing the same people. If you go to a lot of events, you stop learning anything new.
We decided to do something about it. We thought: What if we held our own event, showcasing some of the brilliant women we know who are doing interesting work? Then our peers could learn from them, and once those talks were shared on social media, event organisers wouldn’t be able to say “We couldn’t find any women speakers” anymore.
Standing on stage for half an hour is terrifying—even now, after I’ve done it a hundred times—but five minutes (300 seconds) feels more doable. You’ve got to start somewhere.
So 300 Seconds was born. Our first event took place at Facebook’s offices in London a few weeks later, and the rest is history.
What’s something exciting you’ve worked on recently?
300 Seconds is my side project. My ‘day job’ is running a consultancy called Lithos Partners, where we help organisations find the right blend of platforms, people, and processes for their digital workplace or intranet. I’m a massive intranet nerd at heart.
Recently, we’ve worked with a couple of universities, which has been fascinating. They have really complex governance challenges and need to deliver highly specialised content—exactly the kind of intellectual puzzle I love solving.
What are you most looking forward to about Camp Digital this year?
What I love about Camp Digital is how they curate an agenda that blends cutting-edge industry ideas with fascinating folks who’ll make you laugh, cheer, and reflect on what good digital looks like. Asking me to pick just one thing I’m excited about is like asking me to choose my favourite child.
But I’m especially looking forward to Matt Jukes’ talk on working out in the open. I’ve admired his commitment to sharing with the digital community for a long time. It’s something I try to do myself, though I struggle to balance client confidentiality (since much of our work is in the private sector) with helping people understand what I actually do. So I'm hoping to pick up some tips from Matt.
I’m also hoping I can bag some new laptop stickers!
Camp Digital is back on 3rd July at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Watch lightning talks from previous years through our event archive, learn more about this year's event, and grab your tickets to join us in person or online (main stage) right here.