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How to Give a Good Talk
- JohnKemeny 1y ago> Every talk must begin with its motivation Must is a strong word. Surely there exist good presentations that begin with something else.
- JohnKemeny 1y ago> The audience cannot care about your work until they understand the ‘value proposition’, to use still more contemporary capitalist jargon. Hard disagree. It is easy to imagine a problem that just sounds FUN.
- spicyusername 1y agoThen "fun" is the value proposition.
- JohnKemeny 1y agoBut then the claim is meaningless.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoNo; why would it be? Not everything is fun. Fun is one more reason why I might care, but it's not automatically true. You have to show me that I'm going to have fun. If you can't show me why it's fun, or why it's relevant in some other way, then I'm out. (And you don't have very long to do it, either...) [Edit to reply to tikhonj, because I'm rate limited: The "value proposition" is what makes it valuable to the listener. Why should they give you their attention and time? Value is "anything that makes people interested in what you're telling them", as opposed to all the things that don't make them interested. Since the "don't make them interested" set is not empty (far from it!), then no, it's not a tautology.]
- tikhonj 1y agoIt's "meaningless" because if you broaden out the definition of "value" to "anything that will make people interested in what you're doing", the advice turns into a tautology.
- jszymborski 1y agoIt's still helpful to remind people that an audience will not care about what you are talking about until you tell them, in any way, why they should. So describing a fun problem is implicitly telling the audience why they should listen.
- kd0amg 1y agoAnd yet a lot of speakers still seem to need that self-evidently true statement pointed out to them. Tautological advice isn't necessarily bad or useless, especially for beginners.
- derangedHorse 1y agoOne can argue there’s a value proposition inherent in solving an interesting problem. It reminds me of the paper on optimal tip to tip efficiency: https://ia800308.us.archive.org/32/items/pdfy-tG1MuMpwvrML6QD0/228831637-Optimal-Tip-to-Tip-Efficiency.pdf https://ia800308.us.archive.org/32/items/pdfy-tG1MuMpwvrML6Q... https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Optimal_Tip-to-Tip_Efficiency https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Optimal_Tip-to-Tip_Ef...
- IAmBroom 1y agoTo you. These rules are not, "Skip one and you'll lose the whole audience." They are, "Do this and you'll grab an optimum amount of attention and retention."
- mhandley 1y agoIt's definitely possible to break the rules. In fact, to give a truly outstanding talk that everyone remembers, you probably have to break the rules (speaking as someone who coded an entire Sigcomm presentation in a 3d game engine). But most early career researchers, for whom this advice is presumably intended, are not good enough at giving talks for that to be a good idea. In fact most tenured professors aren't too. If you do break the rules, you need to have a very clear idea in your head as to how you're going to pull it off, and a good idea of who your audience is and how they'll perceive it, and those are both hard to achieve without a lot of experience.
- derangedHorse 1y agoListing out the categories of value proposition is useful when considering what to include in a talk, but in my experience, the entertainment part is just as crucial to getting people’s attention. I’d be interested in seeing how people approach entertainment in a technical context and how it can be used to solidify a talk’s main ideas.
- bluGill 1y agoThere are lots of talks videoed and put on youtube. Cppcon is professionally edited and it shows in quality, others are cell phone in the crowd. Watch a few and you can see plenty of great examples. Almost nobody is singing/dancing, but many are entertaining despite what is ultimately a dry subject
- martypitt 1y agoI've given a few talks at semi-big conferences, and I've always worked hard on the "entertain" part - I think it's really important. BUT (and it's a big but), it adds a second axis of subjectvity. Already, I'm out there talking about a thing which I think is "interesting" and "worthy" subject matter of other peoples time. Now, I'm adding "and is delivered in an entertaining way". For me - that's humour - both in the delivery, and in the slides I show. But - like anything - it doesn't always land. And, when it doesn't -- it's a very very long awkward talk. I've been on speaking circuts where a conference goes to multiple cities (same country), and the talk went down very well in one city, and bombed in another. Things like timing matter (after lunch sucks). Also, The author lists the requirements as "inform, educate and entertain" -- and I'd add -- "in that order". I've cut things from my talk because they were funny (IMO), but ultimately didn't support the content of the talk enough. After all -- This is a tech talk, not a standup routine. All three are very hard to do well -- but I do agree with the author in that's it's the speakers job to do all three.
- indiosmo 1y agoAndrei Alexandrescu comes to mind as someone who does this often. Plenty of talks on youtube.
- 1y ago
- seyz 1y agoTL;DR: A good conference talk delivers value by informing (what you did and why it matters), educating (portable insights), and entertaining (keeping attention) all while aligning with the community’s shared values.
- dvcoolarun 1y agoI believe giving a talk in a boring manner never helps; it should be influenced by humor, like learning from comedians and how they practice public speaking.
- jmmv 1y agoThe content in the article is good and important. That said, I don’t find it “practical” enough so… I’ll link to my own tips on preparing and giving presentations ;-) https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-tips.html https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-tips.html https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-preparation.html https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-preparation.html (These were originally Twitter threads so apologies for the abuse of emojis hehe.) I used to dread speaking in public but have come to enjoy it, and all of the above tips have made it easier over time. I think the vast majority of them came to me from more experienced presenters (and even a class I took in college about public speaking). As others have mentioned in the discussion below, keeping it fun and providing the motivation for the talk are important. And my pet peeve is to remind people that “your slides are not the presentation: what you say is”.
- Nemi 1y agoThese are all great tips, and mirror my admittedly few attempts at public speaking. But one thing that really must be internalized is that, for an hour presentation, you should spend many many hours preparing. If you do this, you will be engaging, cool and calm, and can easily add in humor. Without the preparation you will be stressed and your audience will be bored, or worse, embarrassed for you.
- parpfish 1y agoi've found that something even better than excessive preparation (excessive prep is great -- specially pay attention to transitions and segues!) is letting yourself be honest about the content. my most stressful talks were the times i was early in my career and i had to present the results from some analysis or experiment that i knew was kind of weak or relied on some iffy assumptions. i felt like i had to blow everybody away and i was always dreading some sharp-eyed audience member asking a pointed question that would make the whole thing blow up. my imposter syndrome didn't help, but i felt like i was some sort of slick salesman that had a pull a con and then sneak out without getting caught. instead, be willing to say i don't know. be upfront with things that make you uneasy. it disarms your sharpest critics and makes it less about an antagonistic you-vs-the-audience and turns it into more of a collaborative you-working-with-the-audience.
- bprater 1y agoStart your talk by telling a little story about yourself and bridge it to your topic. In many of the talks I've listened to - I've felt more connected instantly to the speaker than any other technique, including comedy.
- leak 1y agoI highly recommend Toastmasters. Best place to practice giving a speech in front of a group of people that you don't know. They have chapters all around the world. https://www.toastmasters.org/ https://www.toastmasters.org/
- ozim 1y agoFeels like a cult, never heard a bad thing about them. Just my internal guts feeling that probably is wrong.
- giancarlostoro 1y agoYeah, agreed. But it also gets you comfortable presenting, I was recommended them by a trusted friend as well. The overtly marketing hype on their website reminds me of those motivational speaker cults.
- triceratops 1y agoThey don't take all your money or isolate you from your friends and family. If it's a cult, it's of the harmless variety.
- thimkerbell 1y agoBe alert for any recommendations to sound more certain than you are.
- jamesblonde 1y agoHad great fun with them when I was 16 years old. They brought us to the pub for a few drinks. The good old days.
- high_byte 1y agoreminds me of "How to Speak" https://youtu.be/Unzc731iCUY https://youtu.be/Unzc731iCUY
- macintux 1y agoDiscussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095849
- arduanika 1y agoYeah, I saw "How to Give a Good Talk" today and though, wow, that's still on the front page? But no, we've moved on to another take of the same topic. I would highly recommend the video. It's not really fair to compare them, because TFA here is short and sweet, but I got a lot more out of the video.
- ciberado 1y agoLet me also share the English version of my own list of tips, tricks, checks, etc. I’ve been compiling it over the past 15 years while teaching, doing consulting, presenting results to clients, and so on. Every now and then, I find it useful to read it again to be clear on how to prepare presentations. https://github.com/ciberado/100-trucos-para-hacer-mejores-presentaciones/blob/main/README.en.md https://github.com/ciberado/100-trucos-para-hacer-mejores-pr... I will be grateful if you help me to enrich it by opening Issues or creating PRs.
- ehutch79 1y agoUgh, I watch a lot of conference videos, I have more donts than dos. Things that make me turn off a video. - Yes, tell me who you are, and why i should listen to you. But keep it to 1 slide, and 1 minute. I shouldn't be able to walk away and come back literal 5 minutes later and have you still yammering about yourself. especially for a 15 minute lightening talk. - Your talk title should be the agenda. I do NOT need a slide by slide table of contents for your talk, or you reading out the table of contents. - Accents, even heavy ones, aren't much of a problem. Looking anxious isn't a problem, i feel you there. However, You mumbling is. Being overly monotone is. Looking bored yourself doesn't help. People are there because they _know_ you have something their interested to say, you can be confident that people will listen. - Get to the point. Seriously. I shouldn't be able to scrub ahead 10+ minutes and not have you talking about the topic at hand. Please don't explain the basics, like what a web browser is, when your audience is a web dev conference. -Cut the fluff. Especially if you're adhd or other neuro diverse, you need to work to stay on topic. It _might_ help if you write a script, and have someone go through and mark anything off topic. Even if you don't use the script on stage, writing it and having it might anchor you to the topic at hand. You don't need to be perfect on stage. We'll all forgive a lot that happens in a talk. We've all experienced the wrath of the demo gods. We get it, you're cool. BUT only if you're actually giving your talk. Note that most of my complaints circle around not actually giving your talk while you're on stage.
- monocasa 1y ago> Cut the fluff. Especially if you're adhd or other neuro diverse, you need to work to stay on topic. It _might_ help if you write a script, and have someone go through and mark anything off topic. Even if you don't use the script on stage, writing it and having it might anchor you to the topic at hand. This one depends. I agree with you probably 4 out of 5 times it happens, but that other 20% are probably some of the best, most memorable talks.
- sharkjacobs 1y agoI don't know of any examples which match what you're describing, except for some things which were captivating train wrecks, and I don't think they accomplished what the speaker was trying to do very well. Do you have any examples you could link to, or were they all live events?
- zduoduo 1y agoI found this article really helpful, and a lot of the advice made me nod along. The point about “making sure your audience knows what to take away” is something I realize many people, including myself, often overlook. I used to think preparing slides was enough, but now I see that giving a talk is more like having a conversation—you want people to feel comfortable and engaged. I also like the reminder to add a bit of humor and warmth. Next time I get the chance to speak, I’d really like to put this into practice.
- Mrcontent08 1y ago[dead]
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoOn Entertainment: Go find your favorite YouTube educator and imitate them. For me, that's https://www.youtube.com/@WorkshopCompanion https://www.youtube.com/@WorkshopCompanion . I will never be as good at delivery as him, but I aspire to teach so much, so clearly, in such a short time, without making you board.
- alexashka 1y agoStep 1. Have something of non-trivial value to others Step 2. Doesn't matter This applies not only to giving a good talk but living a good life. Unless you were born beautiful - step 1 takes 10-20 years of conscious effort to develop. Everything else is marketing/advertising, otherwise known as lies (99% of what's on HN, for example)
- loughnane 1y agoThis title reminds me of Patrick Winston's "How to Speak" lecture at MIT. It's the best of its kind that I've seen. An hour long and I've watched it several times. Even my highschooler was impressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY EDIT: no way, it was just posted yesterday. Glad it got the attention.
- bsoles 1y agoHaving gone to many international academic conferences, I learned to distinguish the quality of the talk from the quality of the content. I have seen good speakers with fluff content and terrible speakers with useful content. At this point, as long as the quality of the content shows and is discernable, I don't mind bad but sincere speakers. I even kind of like it...
- Raphell 1y agoThe most helpful advice I’ve heard is not to aim for perfection. When you focus too much on structure and technique, the talk often feels stiff. What really connects with people is speaking about something you truly care about. The first time I gave a talk, I memorized the entire script and completely blanked on stage. Later, I spoke from the heart instead and it worked much better. Instead of trying to impress the audience, it might be more important to ask yourself why this matters to you.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Leftium 1y agoNot bad, but I find this better: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/cdnstudents/how-to-deliver-a-successful-persuasive-pitch https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/cdnstudents/... 1. Picture the problem 2. Promise the potential 3. Prove the performance 4. Push the purchase Although focused on "pitches," all talks/presentations are "selling" an idea. (Including that article itself!)