
Ask HN: What are some tips for making my first tech talk a success? - bicx
A month from now, I&#x27;m giving my first tech talk to a 30+ crowd of local developers at a weekly meetup. I&#x27;ll be giving will be titled &quot;Intro to Kotlin for Android Development.&quot; The audience is primarily web developers with some experience in iOS development, so I will likely be introducing a new language in addition to the basics of Android development. Is there any particular approach you have seen that would be a good fit for such a talk?
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hardwaresofton
Assuming your audience are beginners (as it is an intro talk), I find it
immensely useful when tech talks have slides that follow this kind of pattern:

\- Problem/Feature/Reason why it's useful

\- Code

\- Demo of the problem/feature/reason working (whether recorded or live)

Doing a bunch of live demos is real risky for a first tech talk, but if you
practice (I mean really practice, with network access turned off for example),
and know your stuff, it's possible.

If you're game to do a demo, I think one of the most important things you can
demo is going 0-100 with a small kotlin app on Android. This will require you
to make some choices that your audience would normally make themselves (like
how to develop the app, not everyone uses android studio), but if Kotlin for
Android Development is actually valuable, it should be self-evident from
watching it used (you may have to throw in some problems that you solve by
writing idiomatic Kotlin, and explain why they would look worse in Java or
whatever else).

Also you might want to include these slides (probably just one so people don't
lose focus):

\- Options for native android development (to set up the next slide), you
might briefly explain things like React Native, Go for android, Java, Scala,
Clojure. Hard to keep this to one slide but it is valuable because it makes
the person watching feel like they know the landscape, at least at a high
level, and motivates the talk.

\- What/Who/When/Why for Kotlin on Android

Here's an excellent talk that came to my mind:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GzzFeS5cMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GzzFeS5cMc)

~~~
bicx
Thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm watching the talk you linked on Youtube
right now and taking notes.

I think I'm leaning more against doing a live demo at this point, but I may
change my mind as I continue working on my demo material.

Good advice on the slide suggestions. I'll definitely want to cover the Java
alternatives on Android and why I prefer Kotlin.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Yeah, I've seen a lot of great talks on youtube (there's a ton out there), but
as far as real get-started-with-x talks, I can't remember any that really
stick out as good examples (I'm sure I've seen some, just can't remember). I
remember when the developer in that video implemented the reverse-time feature
it was really impressive to watch.

Your talk seems like it might be split between two topics; introduction to
android at large, and why use kotlin over the other choices... It might be a
little hard to balance both but.

Also, I think I might have mentioned, but the safe way to go with demos is
probably to record the parts before hand, then attempt the demo live, and
maybe fall back to the recorded part if things go awry.

Good luck!

------
Eridrus
Have you done much public speaking before this? If not, you probably want to
practice the talk in front of a small group of friends and get their feedback.
Though really the practice is the more important part than the feedback.

~~~
bicx
Back in college almost 10 years ago. I definitely need to practice.

