
Protips for Conference Talks - kenneth_reitz
http://craigkerstiens.com/2012/06/19/pro-tips-for-conference-talks/
======
simonw
This is a great set of tips. I'll add a few...

1\. If you're just getting started, look out for opportunities to give a
lightning talk. These are ideal for beginners - they are only 5 minutes long,
which forces you to get straight to the point. It also doesn't matter if you
suck, because it will be over quickly - and the audience is likely to be very
supportive.

2\. Always, always make sure you've been through your talk SPEAKING OUT LOUD
at least once (and preferably way more than once) - I prefer to do this in the
privacy of a hotel room or similar. Until you've gone through the talk
speaking to an empty room it's very hard to know if it's going to work or not.

3\. Have backups of your slides. I tend to have a Keynote file on my laptop,
and a copy of it (and a PDF export of it) on both a USB key and my Dropbox
account just in case.

4\. If you're going to attempt live demos, have a backup plan - static
screenshots, or maybe a screencast-style video.

5\. Remember: the audience are on your side. They want you to give a great
talk, and they'll ignore any ums and aahs. If you forget what you were going
to say next, just pause, breathe and figure it out - what feels like 30
seconds of silence on stage will probably only be 5 seconds of real time, and
your audience are unlikely to even notice.

There are some good tips about controlling stress during speaking (including
an answer by me) on this Quora thread: [http://www.quora.com/Public-
Speaking/Any-advice-on-how-I-can...](http://www.quora.com/Public-Speaking/Any-
advice-on-how-I-can-control-my-stress-during-my-presentations)

~~~
saurik
I find your first suggestion interesting: I consider the lightning talk "for
advanced speakers only". You have to fit a cohesive point into just five
minutes, often in an environment where the slides are being advanced for you.
If you make a single mistake, you might throw off all of your timing as you
scramble to repair your flow. The slides have to be meticulous, the talk
scripted... I only agree to do a lightning talk if I have a ton of time to
prepare. However, if you would like me to, right now, give an hour long talk
about almost anything related to a computer, in front of a live (not recorded:
recorded is harder) audience of almost any size, I'd be happy to oblidge (and
the longer the talk, to easier it will feel).

~~~
simonw
It sounds like you're talking about Ignite talks, which are a little
different. An Ignite talk is five minutes long, but as you indicated the
slides are on a fixed timer (20 seconds per slide). I absolutely agree that
this is not a good format for beginners - Ignite talks are tricky even for
very experienced speakers.

I was talking about regular lightning talks where you have five minutes but
the format is otherwise completely free form - you don't even need slides, you
can just talk. Sure, you still have to edit your talk down to fit the
available time but that's a great thing for beginners to have to do, and
preparing for five minutes is still easier than preparing for an hour (where
it's easy to prepare too much or too little material).

~~~
saurik
I brought up the slides automatically advancing in te context of some kinds of
lightning talks as an extra problem, not the key one (but was concerned that
someone would pounce on it as if it were my openly point :().

Editing a talk down to five minutes is hard because it requires editing at
all. In contrast, going off on fun-but-useless tangents to fill up a bunch of
time is easy, as is using a bunch of examples or other exposition.

To compare, in the world of essays, it is well known among undergraduates that
there are simple tricks to make an essay as long as required. However, it
requires actually knowing what you are doing to make an essay that is short
but still dense.

So, to now be more explicit: if the slides are not auto-advancing, it does not
help the timing problem. If anything, it just lulls people into a false sense
of complacency. I have thereby heard Ignite talks described as "convention
over configuration" for talks.

The problem is that if you screw up even once, and have to restart a thought
or argument, realize your audience needs an extra example to make something
clear, or simply forget a point an have to fill it in later, you are screwed.

In an hour long format, there is probably something later on in your talk that
you can cut or shorten to make up the time. You often don't even need to do
that, as Q&A is often expected to be included in the time, so you have a
massive buffer to heal mistakes (in either direction).

------
aestetix
I have spoken at many conferences. Some of the best advice I can give: do not
overload your slides.

Too many new speakers are afraid they will forget something, and cram in all
kinds of stuff. If you do that, you'll wind up reading off the slides, and the
audience will focus more on the screen than on you.

My general rule of thumb is to never have more than three items on a slide to
go through. Also, lots of pictures. That way, if people in the audience aren't
super technical, they might not understand the jargon, but they will see a
visual version of it.

I also tend to advise against stupid cat photos and things. I know a lot of
speakers who put things like that in as a "break" from the material, but it
actually ultimately plays to undermine you, as a sort of admission that you're
a bore.

Another good trick to know your audience: ask basic questions to gauge the
audience. "How many of you are programmers?" "How many of you have worked with
Django?" and so on. That can help set the tone for whether you cover intro
material or jump into more deep things. It also pulls the audience into the
talk and breaks down the third wall issue.

~~~
stfu
I like the do-not-overload your slides advise and noticed tremendous
improvements in focus and "aliveness" in my presentation but I was wondering
if anyone from a more traditional finance or consulting perspective could
weight in on that issue.

For example a friend of mine works on conventional M&A projects - with very
crammed Powerpoint slides full of facts and figures. I have seen similarly
crammed slides from the big consulting corporations. Now I was arguing for a
Tufte approach, i.e. making handouts instead, but he rejected the suggestion
as he is only one of the younger team members and the therefore associated
problems with breaking the "we have always done it this way" paradigm.

I am still somewhat pondering about this issue and I am not quite sure if
having really packed slides can not actually become beneficiary in some
occasions - meaning a hitting-them-over-the-head-with-data approach where it
is core to produce some "evidence" and "analytical" approaches. I have found a
similar mindset among some academics for constructing the viability of their
research questions, methods, results in order to succeed in the peer-reviewed
process.

I would love to hear some opinions by those working in conventional blue chip
companies how they view this slide/presentation issue.

~~~
peterwwillis
You never want to "cram" your slides, but things like numbers and graphs are a
good way to reinforce a key point and they go away remembering a percentage or
big figure. I may not remember the contents of all your slides, but i'll
remember the one that said 80% of software development is maintenance, or
something to that effect.

------
Peroni
The last talk I gave was the first talk that was recorded and whilst prior to
the talk I felt confident that I was a decent public speaker, seeing the talk
afterwards on vimeo instantly showed tons of room for improvement.

First time you give a talk, record it and watch it back afterwards. You won't
believe how many subconscious mannerisms you display either in your speech or
body language that you didn't even know existed.

Also, never ever drink before giving a talk.

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SanderMak
One thing that always motivates me is thinking about the amount of time the
audience is investing in you. If you're speaking to 100 people, that's a solid
100 hour investment. This helps me put the time I need for preparation in
perspective. It may seem crazy to spent hours and days to prepare a one hour
talk, but it's not really not if you think about it like this.

Some more thoughts I've written on preparing a technical talk, I think
complementary to the advice of OP:
[http://branchandbound.net/blog/conferences/2012/06/preparing...](http://branchandbound.net/blog/conferences/2012/06/preparing-
a-technical-talk/)

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objclxt
I agree that getting feedback is very useful - getting critical feedback can
be a little harder. I find the best way is for conference organisers to offer
a post-session method of feedback on their website. Sometimes people can come
away from a session quite happy, but after sleeping on it realise that maybe
there were some improvements to be made.

If you're worried about your speaking then recording yourself and watching the
playback can also really help. You might realise that what you thought was a
normal talking speed was actually really, really fast. When I was a TA my
university made it mandatory for us all to peer review tapes of us all giving
a short talk.

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peterwwillis
My observations as a talk giver and viewer:

    
    
      1. Less is more.
      2. Be able to do the talk without slides. Index cards win.
      3. ALWAYS RECORD YOUR DEMOS.
      4. Don't try to be funny. Just be original.
      5. Don't mention sex or race or religion, unless it's your own, and even then... don't.
      6. If it's a security conference, getting drunk on stage usually helps.
      7. If it's a professional security conference, don't tell the press about the zero-day you're going to announce.
      8. Keep an eye on the time.
      9. Break up the talk with one or two small tangents.
      10. Enjoy yourself. It's your talk!

~~~
aestetix
Re: 3, it depends on the kind of demo. Recording a video demo is a great
backup, especially if your demo needs internet and the conference has flakey
internet. However, if you rely too much on demos, it can give people the
impression you don't have faith in your project.

Re: 8, one trick, depending on the size of the audience, is to ask someone to
tell you when 20 minutes (or however long) have passed. People are happy to
help, and timing like that can help you speed up or slow down your talk if
needed.

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iuguy
Talk about timing! At 44Con we've just finished round 2 of our CFP acceptance
and rejections, so we have this[1] page up for our speakers (although it's not
been sent out yet). Hope it's helpful, and if anyone can think of a way to
improve it I'd love to hear!

[1] - <http://44con.com/speaker-hints/>

