TALKS & WORKSHOPS
find your voice
Finding your true voice can be a really difficult thing to do. Many of us have been trained from a young age to take a seat, to raise our hands, to ask for permission to speak. Even the most accomplished, most outspoken, most self-aware still end up taking a backseat, sitting down, shutting up, silencing ourselves without even realizing what we’re doing.
Breaking through the silence requires you to be vulnerable and uncomfortable. It means digging up the truth of who you really are. You’ve got to be brave enough to crack yourself open. Because there is a story inside you that no one else can tell.
It’s time to find your voice and set it free…
Writer and editorial director LaDonna Witmer takes lessons learned in two decades of brand building—and in her own journey from silence to the stage—and turns them into tools you can use to break through the silence and find your voice.
You’ll come to understand why your voice matters, and recognize the fears that keep you silent.
Permission to Speak is a talk that resonates with anyone who has felt silenced or unsure of how or when or where to speak up.
Permission to Speak is also a workshop designed to help people explore their identity and discover their personal voice through art, activities, and introspection. Participants walk away with the tools they need to unlock their true voice (not the auto-tuned social media version.)
ON STAGE AND ON THE ROAD
Working the Room
Remote Workshop for Dropbox Design Research: October 2020
Remote Workshop with She Can Do: August 2020
Remote Workshop for Dropbox Admins: June 2020
Remote Workshop for Dropbox Interns: June 2020
Women’s History Month Theme @Dropbox: March 2020
San Francisco, CA workshop: February 2020
Seattle, WA workshop: February 2020
Tel Aviv, Israel workshop: October 2019
San Francisco, CA workshop: September 2019
Talking the Talk
Women in Design Deep Dive: July 2021
RE-INC talk/workshop hybrid: May 2021
Best Buy XD Conference keynote: February 2021
UXPH Conference keynote: November 2020 [video]
Dropbox Design Community: November 2020 [video]
Speaker Series with Women Talk Design: October 2020 [video]
UX Strat Conference keynote: September 2020
Q&A interview with Autodesk: September 2020
Gladstone Institutes’ Critical Conversations: August 2020 [video]
Remote Design Week keynote: May 2020
Women’s History Month talk for Dropbox EMEA: April 2020
Ladies, Wine & Design talk: April 2020 [video]
Pause Fest 2020 keynote: Melbourne, Australia [video]
In/Visible Talks 2020 keynote: San Francisco, California [video]
The 3% Conference 2019 roundtable: Chicago, Illinois
OFFF Tel Aviv 2019 keynote: Tel Aviv, Israel
WORKBOOK
The Personal Voice Workbook was published in May of 2020. A combination of insight from both the Permission to Speak talk and workshop, the workbook includes exercises designed to help readers claim their voice; identify the things, people, and/or situations that silence them; and envision how and when and where they can use their voice. Download a PDF of the workbook below.
PODCASTS
A conversation with Leigh Allen-Arredondo of UX Cake, January 2020
A conversation with Reena Merchant, founder of Our Voice, in May 2020
The epiphany began with a phone call.
or, rather, with the lack of a phone call.
[click for the whole story]
