8 ms·

Protips for Conference Talks

27 points by kenneth_reitz 14y ago

objclxt 14y ago
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.
aestetix 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
- ylem 14y ago
  Here I would have to say that it depends on your audience--I generally agree, but if there are a lot of non-native speakers of the language you're speaking in, I find it helps to add more to the slides because for many people their reading comprehension is higher than their auditory comprehension....
  - aestetix 14y ago
    That depends on the conference. One way you can get around that... if the conference gives out a CD or anything, you can put a more "verbose" slide deck on the conference CD and suggest that people who are non-native speakers can load up the CD and follow along on their laptop. The verbose version is also useful for people to download who cannot make the talk, especially if they are reading it in an environment where they can't listen to audio.
Peroni 14y ago
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.
simonw 14y ago
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-control-my-stress-during-my-presentations http://www.quora.com/Public-Speaking/Any-advice-on-how-I-can...
- saurik 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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).
SanderMak 14y ago
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-a-technical-talk/ http://branchandbound.net/blog/conferences/2012/06/preparing...
iuguy 14y ago
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/ http://44con.com/speaker-hints/
peterwwillis 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.

27 points by kenneth_reitz 14y ago

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.

aestetix 14y ago

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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
ylem 14y ago
Here I would have to say that it depends on your audience--I generally agree, but if there are a lot of non-native speakers of the language you're speaking in, I find it helps to add more to the slides because for many people their reading comprehension is higher than their auditory comprehension....
- aestetix 14y ago
  That depends on the conference. One way you can get around that... if the conference gives out a CD or anything, you can put a more "verbose" slide deck on the conference CD and suggest that people who are non-native speakers can load up the CD and follow along on their laptop. The verbose version is also useful for people to download who cannot make the talk, especially if they are reading it in an environment where they can't listen to audio.

Peroni 14y ago

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.

simonw 14y ago

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-control-my-stress-during-my-presentations http://www.quora.com/Public-Speaking/Any-advice-on-how-I-can...

saurik 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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).

SanderMak 14y ago

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-a-technical-talk/ http://branchandbound.net/blog/conferences/2012/06/preparing...

iuguy 14y ago

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/ http://44con.com/speaker-hints/

peterwwillis 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.