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On the whole, this is excellent advice. The introduction is completely true for me: I give many talks every year and it is, without question, a _lot_ of work.

On the whole, this is excellent advice. The introduction is completely true for me: I give many talks every year and it is, without question, a _lot_ of work. I suspect that everybody is a bit different as to how they prepare, but like the author, I do the cold rehearsal in my hotel room a half-dozen times (at least) before I actually go to give the talk. I also break my talk into logical chunks - say five or six sections. I practice each of those individually, timing them. This gives me an average for how long each section takes, so I have a schedule written down. This lets me know how far over or under my time allotment I am so that I can adjust on the fly, either adding some additional explanation to some areas or subtly truncating something. I always know my "bail out" slide - if I end up running out of time, what's the "thank you!" slide number? If you simply type in that slide number in PowerPoint or Keynote, it will jump to that slide without fanfare. Don't ever tell your audience that you ran out of time to get to all your material, or flip through the slides to the end that they won't get to see. They'll feel like they were ripped off. (Also, make sure to structure your talk so that the special bonus material is at the end, so they're _not_ actually ripped off.)

amelius 9y ago
> I do the cold rehearsal in my hotel room a half-dozen times How do you prevent getting bored? And how do you prevent your audience to notice that you're bored giving the same talk for the Nth time? These are actually my biggest problems giving presentations.
- hynek 9y ago
  [author of the linked article here] I get bored while practicing (and it’s getting worse as I get better) but the audience changes everything for me. In the absence of special talents, plowing through boredom and practice anyway is what separates good talks from mediocre ones.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    To quote Dr. J: “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”
- Noseshine 9y ago
  You make sure the material is "boring" so that you can concentrate on what the talk is really about: The people in front of you. They change every time, sometimes radically (composition of the audience and context). You want to waste as little conscious thought as possible when it comes to the material you are presenting so that you are free to dedicate yourself to the audience. How boring does it get for a painter to use the same kinds of brushes for all their paintings? Or for a musician to use the exact same instrument? It doesn't, because they are not what you focus on. It may get boring to minimally refactor the same code twenty times -- the code is the focus of the action. When giving a talk about the code the focus is what you want to achieve with people, not with code. If you are there and really only care about the thing you want to present instead of the people in front of you then sure, they will probably notice. Disclaimer: This goes along with the other sub-thread here about the value of recording talks. What I say above is more about talks that are about convincing and motivating people. I don't mean that as in "motivational speeches" at all, but an Apple keynote about their new products is in that category. You want to give people a "look behind the scenes", at the person, because technology fails if the people and/or organization(s) fail no matter the quality of the technology. If the talk is about the latest internal optimizations of the V8 Javascript runtime giving the talk once and then point to the recording, or even just a lengthy blog post may actually be better and the main reason there is a talk is "the conference is there anyway and why not". But that's the kind of talk I would put only minimal effort into and it still works, because I don't need to convince and engage people, only to inform them.
  - JustFYI 9y ago
    Yes, we truly live in the age of useless bullshit. 99/100 talks I've watched from YouTube make me skip through the bullshit and see if there's even a single slide with some interesting content in it.
    - daveguy 9y ago
      1.5x and 2x speed on the desktop version of YouTube (and the ability to set playback speed in most media apps) helps with that.
- ethomson 9y ago
  Personally, I love speaking and presenting. I'm not bored giving a talk several times, they're different each time, even when you think it'll be the same. Having to compress something down to 30 minutes or extend something to 60 makes a different, plus the things that I've been thinking of that day. I also often try to tie in my talk with a prior talk or with the keynote. I also don't find the rehearsals boring; in fact, around 24 hours before, I'm already starting to get excited about the upcoming talk. So I'm pretty amped up. One challenge is multiple talks back-to-back. It's hard to keep that momentum up for several days in a row. I've definitely had occasion to give a great, high-energy talk and then give a talk a day or so later that just feels "off", especially in terms of my energy level.
aargh_aargh 9y ago
Interesting, I didn't know you can type the slide number. Anyway, no need to remember the last slide number - just press the End key to jump there.
- munin 9y ago
  Some people organize their deck with an end slide and then an "appendix" of backup slides with figures that might be relevant during Q&A but don't really have a role in the flow of your presentation. Of course, they could just have two, duplicate, "Thanks!" slides, one at the logical end of their talk and another at the physical end of their deck...
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    Or double your first slide as your Thank You slide and use the Home key. Also, don't underestimate the power of the blank screen (B or period for black, W or comma for white in PowerPoint; press again to return to last slide). If you don't have an action item take away to display it can be an effective "I'm done" and bring focus more directly to you for any concluding remarks (including saying a "Thank You"). (It can also be effective in the middle of a presentation to highlight something you want people to hear from you first rather than read.)

amelius 9y ago

> I do the cold rehearsal in my hotel room a half-dozen times How do you prevent getting bored? And how do you prevent your audience to notice that you're bored giving the same talk for the Nth time? These are actually my biggest problems giving presentations.

hynek 9y ago
[author of the linked article here] I get bored while practicing (and it’s getting worse as I get better) but the audience changes everything for me. In the absence of special talents, plowing through boredom and practice anyway is what separates good talks from mediocre ones.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  To quote Dr. J: “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”
Noseshine 9y ago
You make sure the material is "boring" so that you can concentrate on what the talk is really about: The people in front of you. They change every time, sometimes radically (composition of the audience and context). You want to waste as little conscious thought as possible when it comes to the material you are presenting so that you are free to dedicate yourself to the audience. How boring does it get for a painter to use the same kinds of brushes for all their paintings? Or for a musician to use the exact same instrument? It doesn't, because they are not what you focus on. It may get boring to minimally refactor the same code twenty times -- the code is the focus of the action. When giving a talk about the code the focus is what you want to achieve with people, not with code. If you are there and really only care about the thing you want to present instead of the people in front of you then sure, they will probably notice. Disclaimer: This goes along with the other sub-thread here about the value of recording talks. What I say above is more about talks that are about convincing and motivating people. I don't mean that as in "motivational speeches" at all, but an Apple keynote about their new products is in that category. You want to give people a "look behind the scenes", at the person, because technology fails if the people and/or organization(s) fail no matter the quality of the technology. If the talk is about the latest internal optimizations of the V8 Javascript runtime giving the talk once and then point to the recording, or even just a lengthy blog post may actually be better and the main reason there is a talk is "the conference is there anyway and why not". But that's the kind of talk I would put only minimal effort into and it still works, because I don't need to convince and engage people, only to inform them.
- JustFYI 9y ago
  Yes, we truly live in the age of useless bullshit. 99/100 talks I've watched from YouTube make me skip through the bullshit and see if there's even a single slide with some interesting content in it.
  - daveguy 9y ago
    1.5x and 2x speed on the desktop version of YouTube (and the ability to set playback speed in most media apps) helps with that.
ethomson 9y ago
Personally, I love speaking and presenting. I'm not bored giving a talk several times, they're different each time, even when you think it'll be the same. Having to compress something down to 30 minutes or extend something to 60 makes a different, plus the things that I've been thinking of that day. I also often try to tie in my talk with a prior talk or with the keynote. I also don't find the rehearsals boring; in fact, around 24 hours before, I'm already starting to get excited about the upcoming talk. So I'm pretty amped up. One challenge is multiple talks back-to-back. It's hard to keep that momentum up for several days in a row. I've definitely had occasion to give a great, high-energy talk and then give a talk a day or so later that just feels "off", especially in terms of my energy level.

aargh_aargh 9y ago

Interesting, I didn't know you can type the slide number. Anyway, no need to remember the last slide number - just press the End key to jump there.

munin 9y ago
Some people organize their deck with an end slide and then an "appendix" of backup slides with figures that might be relevant during Q&A but don't really have a role in the flow of your presentation. Of course, they could just have two, duplicate, "Thanks!" slides, one at the logical end of their talk and another at the physical end of their deck...
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  Or double your first slide as your Thank You slide and use the Home key. Also, don't underestimate the power of the blank screen (B or period for black, W or comma for white in PowerPoint; press again to return to last slide). If you don't have an action item take away to display it can be an effective "I'm done" and bring focus more directly to you for any concluding remarks (including saying a "Thank You"). (It can also be effective in the middle of a presentation to highlight something you want people to hear from you first rather than read.)