Ask HN: What are the things keep in mind while giving/preparing for a tech talk?

In my experience, one of the most important things is to keep your audience in mind. I recently gave a talk about how docker works internally. I knew that a good chunk of the audience was aware of the difference between docker and a VM, so in the beginning, I explained these differences via a more or less fun story. People who already knew the content were not annoyed, the rest got the information they needed.

Another thing is, tech talks tend to be as dry as the Sahara desert. So try to make your talk interesting. Do not just focus on getting the information across, but make it fun to listen.

Practice your talk without slides. This has two benefits: You concentrate on the content, so your stuff by heart at the end. And you don't depend on the slides, in case something goes wrong.

Lastly, prepare for 4:3 - even if they say you get a 16:9 beamer, chances are it's not. And prepare for offline, your Laptop being broken and in case you are doing a live demo: Have a video of it as a backup.

These tips are all just from my experience and may not apply to you, but maybe it's helpful. :)

Plan for any tech or other collateral to not work properly on the day and have contingencies to continue - even things such as having a printout of your presentation storyboard or bullet points to hand.

who is your audience? where are they starting from? know this before going in.

get there very early and check that the tech is sorted.

have a short list of explicit goals - feel free to write them out.

practice at least once, for real, out loud. If no one will help, present the talk to a stuffed bear.

do not read your slides to the audience.

expect live demos to fail - have a practiced contingency plan.

no lewd illustrations and don't put people down - you are in a position of responsibility.

at the end, sum up.

Whilst I personally agree that talks are better when you learn something new, there seem to be whole conferences dedicated to intentionally restating the same things over and over again. Its almost as if some people go to these events to have their ideas _confirmed_. Project management conferences I am looking at you!

Always do at least 1 full rehearsal with a timer, preferably two full rehearsals where the first one you do keep a timer but also have a notebook (physical) present to quickly write down adjustments you want to make.

Do a live demo, people love live demo's, but be prepared for when disaster strikes (it will), if possible run your live demo on a physical device with you during the presentation.

Most places allow you to have 2 devices connected, or quickly switch the HDMI cable to the demo machine.

Do not use a linux machine, I know this sounds harsh, but with all the types of beamers/screens out there, a windows or mac machine will just have a much higher success rate. (I learnt this the hard way, in the end I could choose between mirrored 640*480 or full hd on the beamer only, which makes live demos much harder).

Create short slides, the slides are there to guide you and the audience. Try to prevent reading the slides out loud.

Use images and videos, they can tell more then a thousand words.

I often use the STAR approach to tell my story, this helps structure your talk. You don't need to follow star exactly, but if trying to explain something, it often helps to first give a bit of background why you did what you did.

Make sure you let the audience know if and when you will be answering questions, some talks really benefit from interactivity, but if you are short on time, let people know they can ask their questions later (perhaps add a slide at the end with sources and your contact information).

Also, relax, the audience has already decided they want to listen to your presentation.