Let's talk about speaking

Note: There are extra line breaks after some nested unordered list. The Dev.to team is looking into it. Oh and Sticker Mule is hiring =)

My first talk was at WordCamp LA in 2011. Ever since then I kept an Evernote of things I have learned over the years. Hopefully, this might help someone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pros:

• Travel the world on someone else’s dime
• Meet amazing people
• Get into conferences for free
• Get out of your comfort zone
• Speakers lounge (unlimited food and soft drinks plus connect with other speakers)

Cons:

• Practicing
• Researching
• Self-doubt
• Anxiety
• Layovers

Tips:

• Hire a coach

  • Investing in a coach is one of the best things you can do.
  • Pro athletes rely on coaches, amateur speakers should too
  • Find a coach that will give it to you straight and will give you constructive feedback not just “that’s shit”.
  • If you can't afford/find a coach, ask a co-worker or friend who isn't afraid to give you constructive feedback.

• There’s no such thing as perfect

  • Don't obsess over a transition, design, wording, etc
  • Just get it done

• Use gifs/meme's sparingly

  • Sometimes an animated gif/meme will work great
  • If every slide is a gif/meme, it gets old
  • Break it up with a real photo
    • Unsplash is great
      • Can be used for commercial and noncommercial purposes.
      • You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit

• Research

  • Make sure you know exactly what you are talking about
  • Give credit on the slide
  • Anticipate questions that will be asked

• Conference organizers won’t be sitting there with a stop clock

  • I use to worry that if I only had 20 min, I would get in trouble.
  • Keynotes are carefully timed, a talk with less than 50 people in it won’t.

• Expect low attendance (not a bad thing)

  • Unless you or the company you work for are well known in the community, expect 2-20 attendees.
  • My 2016 OSCON talk had ~10 people in it
  • Conferences are very competitive, lots of tracks going on, expo halls with food and swag, etc.
  • If more people show up then cool, but set realistic expectations.
  • Honestly it doesn't matter how many people are at your talk, it is the quality.
    • 3 of ~10 at OSCON signed up for an OSI account in the expo hall. 😃
    • I met Gregor who was 1 of 4 people in the audience at OS Bridge.
      • He introed me to Pia which led to SustainOSS

• Practice at meetups

  • Just like comedians playing at small clubs before the big show
  • Get feedback e.g. were the slides easy to read? etc

• Buy an adapter for every type of video in/output
  

  • Don’t assume the conference will provide you one, they usually don't:

• Turn off all notifications on your laptop and phone

  • Phone: DND + silent mode (not vibrate, silent)
  • Laptop: Close Slack, Skype, basically the only program(s) that should be open are the ones that you will be using during your talk

• Buy a wireless clicker

  • Telling someone "next slide please" each time is lame
  • Logitech Wireless Presenter R400 Remote Control
    • This is what the pros use, it is the best on the market
    • It has a frickin laser!

• Don’t walk over to the projected slide and point

  • If you must use a laser, but even that sucks.
  • Use actions/transitions to get the audience's attention.

• Promote your talk

  • Twitter
    • Tweet mentioning the conference and hashtag
    • Pin tweet Example
    • Update your background image example
    • Organizers appreciate it more than you know.

• Learn the difference between Standard (4:3) and Widescreen (16:9)

  • It’s no fun having to redo your slides to fit the required slide size

• Panels are the best

  • No practice or too much preparation needed.

• Practice every day no matter what

  • After breakfast, just get it out of the way.
  • Ask friends if you can rehearse for them.
  • Practice in the shower. Not joking.

• Just be you, don’t mimic TED talks or any other speakers

• If your CFP doesn’t get accepted, don’t take it personally.

  • In 1992, Tim Berners-Lee's paper was rejected for the Hypertext Conference
  • Sometimes they give you discount code to the conference
  • There are literally hundreds of similar events, check Lanyrd

• Have all your videos/slide decks available publicly so you can link to them when organizers ask.

  • If you don't have any, have a friend record you doing a lightning talk at a meetup. They are always looking for people to talk and don't care if you have any experience.

• Encourage people to ask questions at the end.

  • It could fuck up your flow
  • If you don't have an answer, say something like "That's a great question, I honestly don't know the answer".
    • You can also encourage the audience to give their answer/opinion if you want.

• If people walk out

  • Try not to focus on it too much
  • Don't shame them i.e. don't say "thanks for walking out asshole"
  • It's almost nothing you did, it just wasn't for them

• Avoid live demos

  • Even the best can't get them to work 99.99% of the time

Cover Photo by Marcos Luiz

Comments

[Helen Anderson]

Thank you for posting this, it's great to read about the practical side of speaking - get a clicker, an adaptor, turn off all the things. Incredibly useful :)

[Justin Dorfman]

My pleasure!