

Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare? - craigkerstiens
http://www.roguelynn.com/words/crap-im-speaking/

======
tptacek
Have said this before, will say it again in case it helps. I don't know why
this works for me but it manifestly does.

1\. Write slides, more than you think you need, and try to have fewer than 1/4
of them include bullets.

2\. Print the slides out, one sheet per slide.

3\. Tape slides to wall in a grid.

4\. Rehearse the talk to the grid of slides on the wall with a sharpie in your
hand. Any time you have trouble with a slide or trouble transitioning from one
slide to the next, note it (or fix the slide) on the paper slide.

5\. Reorganize slides in Keynote (or whatever), print them out again, repeat.

This may just be a bit of a ritual for me, but one thing it definitely does is
it creates a context where I don't feel silly rehearsing by myself.

------
swombat
I disagree with one point: don't start with writing out the talk. Otherwise
the talk will feel unnatural, stilted... Instead, practice _speaking_ your way
through it - and write down nice turns of phrase that you come up with while
talking. This will resolve most of the flow issues you'd get with starting
with writing, most of the awkward sentences, keep the whole thing flowing
naturally, and generally result in a better talk.

Preparing a talk by writing it out may work to some extent, but it's as
unnatural as preparing an essay by speaking it out. The two are very different
formats, and you should approach them differently.

~~~
someproduct
I've found that the weakest part of many presentations is in the transition
from one point or idea to the next.

Shaky transitions are a prime cause of audience disinterest, and poor flow can
quickly remove the auditor from the energy and flow the speaker has
established, which makes such a time perfect for checking twitter and FB and
otherwise disengaging.

The boundaries between ideas should feel natural and smooth, and I think for
many it's difficult to arrive at a natural transition without getting very
intentional about it, i.e. writing it out.

So I say write it down, edit, speak chunks out loud, and edit more.

In this way, the presenter can craft the most important sections with style
while becoming familiar enough with the material that the delivery feels quite
natural.

~~~
sophacles
One thing I find useful for transitions is to set up some unrelated points in
advance.

So instead of doing :

Thing a, thing b, thing c

I do:

We had to do a few things, then tie them together, First thing a, so we also
had to do thing b. finally to get going we had to thing c. They all work
together like result.

Another transition method that works for me is to just announce the seeming
non-sequitor. "Now I need to talk for a minute about X. I know it seems
unrelated, but it turns out to be vital..."

HTH someone :)

------
jnazario
(speaking as someone who literally gave buttloads of presentations all over
the world for over a decade)

if you use slides i suggest reading cliff atkinson's blog "beyond powerpoint
bullets". in it he lays out ideas, principles and templates for PPTs (and any
other preso tools) that tell stories. these are based on cognitive studies,
like the number of bullet points you should use based on how much your
audience can hold and remember.

secondly, advice from one of my ph.d. advisors: "tell 'em what you're going to
be telling them, tell them, and then tell 'em what you told 'em". _the take
home message is not a punchline_ , so don't be afraid to "spoil" it up front
and repeat it.

don't read your slides, use images (see the first paragraph) and tell a story.
talk with passion, enthusiasm, and joy. RAVE: rate, articulation, volume,
emotion (from mrs hedaman, my old theater teacher back in high school),
remember that.

love what you do, and share that joy with your audience. that's the goal.

~~~
freework
I'm curious, how did you et into the 'speaking business'? It seems a lot of
these conferences only invite people to speak who have already spoken at large
conferences. I did a talk at a local usergroup (5 people attended) and I loved
it. I want to give talks at bigger conferences, but my proposals always get
rejected. It seems once the ball is rolling, it just keeps rolling. Got any
advice?

~~~
brc
Keep blogging on the topics you want to speak about. So if you want to speak
about X, blog at least once a month about things related to X.

Find out who is doing the speaker selections (even if they are just
shortlisting) for the conference. Try and find a way to 'meet' them (this may
be online). Find if they have a blog, and comment thoughtfully on their blog.
If it's a yearly conference, go to the conference and seek them out and
introduce yourself. Go to a session on the topic you want to talk about, and
get up, introduce yourself (it feels tacky and awkward, but comes across as
very professional) and then ask an intelligent question that will help the
presenter cover an aspect they maybe didn't get time to cover. Ideally not a
'gotcha' question.

The aim is that when your submission is on that persons desk, they immediately
have a picture in their head of who you are, what you know, and that you can
write coherently on the topic at hand.

I followed this prescription and went from nobody wanting me to doing several
invited user groups per year and speaking at at least one big conference per
year, and also being invited to deliver webinars with quite large audiences.

Finally, don't mess up your big chance when you get it, and beg the attendees
to put in evaluation forms if they are there. Hand out candy if you have to.

------
cperciva
The most important advice I've ever been given is to time myself talking
through my slides. It is incredibly difficult to guess how long a particular
presentation will take, which makes things rather awkward when you have
conference organizers with schedules; talking through your slides gives me an
accurate number which can result in me adding or removing slides. Even when I
don't change the slides, knowing if I have plenty of time or need to squeeze
helps me determine how much to re-iterate points and let things "sink in"
before moving on to the next point.

------
maximilian
I've had to speak often lately in front of small and medium sized groups, and
the biggest thing that has helped is to just practice my talk several times
alone.

Obviously giving the talk in front of others is important, especially when it
comes to message and content, but a practice run for other people will
obviously be a little rough around the edges from a word-flow perspective
(assuming you have a hard time with this like myself).

Lately I try to give my talk to a blank wall at least 3 times before I will
talk in front of real people so that I really know my slides and I know how
long it will take. Usually you have a fairly strict time limit, so running
through the talk with a stopwatch is critical.

I've also tried writing my talk out and simply reading it for practice, but it
always sounds awful and is much shorter than an ad-lib version, which is never
the same twice. I imagine people who have had drama, or any other
acting/standup experience have a great advantage, just because they seem to be
able to say almost exactly what they want, two times in a row. Perhaps it just
has to do with have done enough speaking, that you become used to saying
things in front of people.

------
pseut
This won't apply to most people, but if your talk involves _any math at all_ ,
use LaTeX + Beamer (www.math.binghamton.edu/erik/beameruserguide.pdf) to
prepare pdfs of your slides. They will look much better. The beamer user-guide
also has a chapter on presentation preparation. You can export outlines from
Emacs org-mode as pdf slides via beamer, which can be (depending on the
version, etc) a little fiddly but is much easier than typing the slides up
directly in LaTeX.

FWIW, I started feeling much better about presentations once I convinced
myself to view the audience as friends who are trying to help me understand
the material I'm presenting, rather than a group that I needed to try to
impress.

~~~
redacted
If you are on a Mac, try LaTeXiT [0] + Keynote.

Type in your equations/math, hit render, drag the PDF (or many other image
formats) to your slide.

LaTeXiT gives you the best of both worlds; wonderful rendering of math, with
the bonus of using Keynote (which is the best presentation software on any
platform in my experience).

[0] <http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/>

~~~
pseut
That looks nice; part of the advantage of beamer, though, is that the
equations and (especially) inline variables are automatically positioned
correctly and consistently -- it looks like that might not be the case for
LaTeXiT.

------
mfringel
So I have to admit. I'm still quite torn.

On one hand, keeping slides simple and avoiding "eye charts" clearly makes for
better readability, and reduces the risk of the presenter "reading from the
slide."

OTOH, a set of slides like that is utterly useless after the fact, unless it's
accompanied by a transcript. Both audio and video recordings require serial
attention for 15/30/60 minutes that I typically will not have, and I certainly
can't see doing that to anyone else.

A question to the assembled: If you make "Presentation Zen"/"Merlin Mann"/etc.
low-text high-concept slides for your talk, how do you make sure your
presentation is accessible after the fact?

~~~
simonw
The best way of handling this in my opinion is to publish an annotated version
of the slides afterwards. Here's a good example:
<https://speakerdeck.com/zachinglis/notes>

~~~
evolve2k
I would agree for a talk you should optimize for the primary medium, being
live presenting. Sure if you want to spread the word you can create other
content with the same topic name, like a good blog post, to help you get the
message out. There's noting worse than crappy over texted slides where I
attend and am thinking, I could have just stayed home and read the slides.

Apparently there was a classic talk by Dr Nic from Engine Yard who also does
stand up comedy, the speaker didn't show up for some reason so Dr Nic jumped
up and gave the talk cause he could just read the slides like everyone else.
(disclaimer: wasn't there so facts may vary)

------
stephengillie
The biggest thing which trips me up is perspective and space. I'm
uncomfortable in unfamiliar spaces and rooms, and unfamiliar perspectives
within a room. This reduces my ability to perform, interact, and speak to
people I don't know.

I'd suggest finding an empty stage somewhere and standing on it for 5 minutes.
Just get comfortable. Get bored on stage. Try this a few times in different
places with different lighting and furniture.

When you get to the conference, try to sneak onstage for 5 seconds, or even
just peek through the curtain. Then visualize the space and try to become
comfortable with it.

And try to channel your nervous energy into positive thinking.

------
eliza1wright
A couple good tips that have helped me:

1) Your public speaking will be more polished and compelling if you think of
your speech as a story.

2) If you have some vital points to make, draw a picture on a notecard that
will remind you of what you need to communicate. It doesn't matter if your
picture is simple or complex, it just needs to get the message across to you.
Then if you freeze up, you can look down and relax--no awkward pauses as you
squint at several lines of notes.

------
dpeck
Record yourself speaking. Once or twice through and you're going to have a
very good idea of the parts you need to work on.

Also very helpful to have a "good run" recording saved that you can give a
quick listen to if you're asked to do the presentation again. You don't have
to find your words all over again.

~~~
jakozaur
I do it with iMovie. Moreover, sometimes I rehearse some parts more times.
Even more, you can upload the video and ask your friend to watch it.

Probably one of the easiest advice to implement which improves quality a lot.

Disclaimer: I was organizer of event series where ~12 speakers give 5 minute
talks.

------
thelock85
I like to write speeches for clarity's sake and then practice speaking them
over and over again leading up to the event. At least a day before I shut
everything down and let the chips fall where they may. It usually results in
me getting all my points across clearly without sounding like a robot.

------
simonw
These are good tips.

On the subject of practising: doing a test run in front of real human beings
is definitely ideal, but it's not always possible (especially if you've left
preparation a little late...) - in the absence of that, it's really, really
important that you practice the talk out loud. Even if it's to an empty room,
doing it out loud will help ensure your pacing is right and that what you are
saying makes sense.

I find that a talk only begins to really take shape the first time I rehearse
it out loud, so the earlier in the process I do that the better - leaving
plenty of time to adjust the talk to flow better or cover important missing
pieces of information.

~~~
guiambros
That's the key step to me. Rehearse and rehearse. When you're done, rehearse
again.

Seriously, it is that important. At the beginning I used to think that _"nah,
I've already done the slides, I know the subject inside out, and can always
improvise. It sounds more natural"_. Wrong. This way you just sound
unprepared.

As you practice, the flow gets tighter, you tell the same story with fewer
words, paints a more colorful story. You start to see more clearly the holes
in your thought process, and even jokes become more natural.

This is particularly important when doing a group talk. When you have multiple
speakers, then you _definitely_ need to practice, because it's not just about
you anymore, and the quality of the entire talk will be determined by the
weakest link.

For really important talks, five is the magic number. 5 full runs start to
finish, non-stop, timed with a stopwatch. A good devil's advocate as audience
helps (to take notes while you're presenting), but even that is not critical,
provided you rehearse enough times.

------
jamesbritt
To prepare for a presentation at Ignite Phoenix (which has its own particular
set of rules) I used Screenflow to record myself speaking over the automated
slide changes.

I wrote out my talk first, as an essay. I then read it and adjusted it based
on how well it matched the automated slide changes and how easy/natural it was
for me to say it.

I ended up with a video I could play over and over, listen to, and then recite
from memory. I also printed my slides on index cards, along with some notes on
what was supposed to be said for that slide, and had them with me since, as I
it happened, when i gave my talk I needed some prompts.

I also practiced a lot. I hate it, but it helps, so there you go.

Ignite talks are a different sort of animal, where timing is very important
(since you have no control over the slide change speed). But I found this
approach of use for more casual presentations; it's still a good idea to have
a good idea of how much time you will take and how well it all flows.

What I found was that you can start with something that would take 30 minutes
to read to a crowd, edit out the cruft, the joke slides, and the amusing-but-
unimportant factoids, and whittle you talk down to something punchy and
concise.

Most talks are too long. Modulo topic and subject complexity I'd say they
should be no more than 20 minutes.

Even if you're not doing an Ignite talk, plan as if you were and be mindful
about how and why you make it longer. Don't give people an excuse to be
checking Twitter or HN while you're speaking.

------
ellaVader
My favorite talk on giving talks: Caroline Drucker, Ignite Berlin -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H36kbMMrZo>

------
caseorganic
I always start in my head with the goal of the speech, then I sit down and
make a quick outline.

I use the outline as a skeletal structure for my slide deck, otherwise I spend
hours tweaking font size on the slides instead of understanding the overall
goal of the talk. Once the outline is done, I add in a bit of muscle to the
talk - one to two sentences per point to the outline. Then I go to the slides
and add full-pages images for each slide, with short topic headlines for each
part of the talk. Then I memorize the gist of the outline sentences and embed
those mentally into the slides (making the slide deck a memory palace). When I
get up on stage, the slides remind me of the storyline or topic I'm on, and I
simply tell the story.

I have written out some talks before, but I only use that method to practice
the talk as if I were speaking it out loud. I write with the same tone of
voice that I speak in, and write it to get it out of my system. I don't look
back to the write-up afterwards.

------
evanhamilton
I'm a big fan of "Confessions of a Public Speaker". Even if you don't agree
with all the advice, it gives you some great perspective.

------
sambeau
Learn your talk as a bullet list not as a script. Know each slide and what it
means: which bullet points it matches. Assume that you will ad-lib on the day.
Put as little of the real text as you can into the slides themselves. Never
read anything: not even a quote.

Have a go at doing your slides backwards (or at least your main slides if you
tend to have lots of slides per topic). Be sure that you are making a clear
message at the end. Then have a go midway (pulp fiction style). Your message
should still be clear.

You are fully prepared when you can click through your slides while (mostly)
looking forward.

------
btilly
I am getting a 404 error.

That said, if you will be speaking at a conference,
<http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/> is well worth reading.

~~~
roguelynn
Yea I recently moved my site's hosting. Try
<http://roguelynn.herokuapp.com/words/crap-im-speaking>

~~~
btilly
Thank you for linking to a working copy.

On your #3, I prefer mjd's advice to "get to the point". They have already
chosen to sit in your talk. Hopefully they know something about who you are,
what the talk is supposed to be about, and there is little point in wasting
the period when you are most likely to _actually_ have their attention on
reminding them of that.

(Note, mjd is the author of the conference presentation judo talk that I
linked to above. TPC is The Perl Conference is the predecessor of OSCON. I
don't know if he has continued to maintain the top speaker rating that he had,
but he did so for a long time. He is worth listening to.)

------
jgrahamc
I do think practicing is helpful and also having an outline of the major
points you want to make in your head.

I use the 'memory palace' technique* for important talks so that I walk
through a place I know in my head and each location is associated with a major
point I need to make. This is important because I don't have the points on my
slides (necessarily). The slides will often support the point, not make it.

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci>

~~~
roguelynn
Isn't that premise of Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer?
[http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-
Rememberi...](http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remembering-
Everything/dp/0143120530)

Either way - I do little tricks like that too. This is a very good suggestion.

------
freework
Here are my tips:

1\. Don't try to write jokes into the presentation. It won't be funny. It will
only be funny if the joke comes to you on the spot.

2\. Try to write the talk in terms of vague concepts instead of specific
wording. WHen practicing, don't worry about how you're going to express a
certain concept, just focus on understanding the concept inside and out. Every
time I give a talk, the words come out a little bit differently each time.
This keeps the talk from sounding robotic.

~~~
jamesbritt
_It will only be funny if the joke comes to you on the spot._

Self-awareness is key.

Not every amusing thought that springs to my mind is suitable for the public.

On stage and under pressure may not be the best time and place to decide if a
joke is funny.

------
dugmartin
This is probably going to sound old fashioned but I would suggest looking up
and attending the next meeting of your local Toastmasters
(<http://reports.toastmasters.org/findaclub/>). They have a 10 speech series
that will take you from terrified speaker to "competent communicator" in a
well-structured non-threatening environment (and yes, I am a Toastmaster).

------
ZanderEarth32
Neil Patel recently wrote some helpful advice for public speaking, even if you
hate it

[http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/03/how-to-speak-in-
public...](http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/03/how-to-speak-in-public-even-
if-you-hate-public-speaking/)

------
xradionut
Practice at your local user group. We have several national known experts in
the our field at the NTSSUG and they all do their dress rehearsals for larger
conferences at meetings and regional conferences. And a majority do virtual
meetings, video blogs and teach classes.

------
Gravityloss
is the headline missing a comma?

Crap, I'm speaking at this conference?

Or is it really: Crap I'm speaking at this conference? So he's talking crap?

------
datalus
Protip: Take a couple shots of something strong before going on.

