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

Then sketch an outline of presenting that information, just a rough order of what to touch on. I find that I naturally outline so that each entry is about five minutes, but I don't know if that's just me or a common tendency.

Then I get a timer, stand up, and start talking to myself. I'll take an outline entry, and try to tell an imaginary audience about it. Typically I realize that I have some questions I need to answer for myself, or I run over five minutes. Think about how to drop stuff, look up what you need, note down what bits of verbiage came out that flowed well to reinforce them for yourself, and do it again. I often get frustrated after two or three times on one item, and go do another one, then come back to it and do it some more. During this whole process pretend the perfect slide to go with your text is up next to you so you can point.

After some cycles, this will converge. You will know what you want to say, and you will know what needs to be on the slides. Now set the timer for the full talk length and give the whole talk like this, still with pretend slides. You'll probably find places where you need transitional material, and it will probably run long despite the fact that the pieces add up to fit. Adjust. Do it again. This is also a good time to figure out and memorize the first couple sentences of each section, which will let you transition easily if you lose your place.

At this point you know your talk. Now go sketch your slides out on paper, and give your talk pointing to the paper. Once you think you have what you need figured out on paper, then go turn them into a PowerPoint, PDF, whatever.

Now practice it with the slides. Practice starting from a section using those memorized sentences. Memorize your sequence of outline items with those sentences attached.

Then do a run-through the day before. The day of, I spend five minutes thinking through my outline and section starting sentences, take a deep breath, and talk as inhumanly slow as you can. Even if you don't have stage fright (I don't), you will have adrenaline, and you need to slow down.

Version control your slides. This is particularly useful if you end up giving the same talk more than once as you can tweak things and improve it.

It's a tech talk, not a stand-up comedy routine. Light jokes and colorful anecdotes help with connecting to the content but the substance should stand on it's own.

Depending on your alcohol tolerance 1-2 drinks can be remarkably effective at smoothing out your delivery.

I find a small intro on the format of the presentation to be helpful at setting expectations. The talk descriptions are often very short and it's hard to gauge what's actually going to be covered with a lot of "Deep dive into XYZ" barely getting your ankles wet with real code. It's appreciated (as an audience member) to know in advance what you'll be getting.

Briefly, rather than using topic titles ("Experimental Setup", "Results"), use assertions ("Sampling occurred over 5 days", "Sunlight causes significant degradation") as titles. Then the bulk of the slide is some information, preferably graphical, that supports the assertion. Reading the titles in order should give you a strong sense of the presentation content.

I strongly recommend "The Craft of Scientific Presentations" by Michael Alley, which covers the assertion-evidence approach, and a host of other practical topics.

[0] https://www.assertion-evidence.com

Preparing: 1) Give yourself enough time to write and practice the talk. If you can get ~1 month, that (for me atleast) is more than enough time.

2) Say the words out loud when practicing. You may use different words or slightly improvise during the talk, which is totally fine. Just let yourself hear some version of it a few times (out loud) before presenting. In my experience this helps to avoid stutters, and keeps you in your place.

3) Watch talks of people online that you enjoy or by people that inspire you. We all have our own "style" when it comes to public speaking. You will never be able to straight up copy someone. But watch and take mental notes as you do.

4) (If you are preparing slides), keep them simple! It is YOU who is presenting the talk. Not a wall with a projector. Treat your slides mostly as an accessory. They can help illustrate a point perhaps, or outline the key subjects. Short and simple.

Presenting: 1) If you can, make sure you have a bottle of water handy when you go up.

2) When I approach the stand, platform or stage, I like to do so with confidence. This really does depend on the setting. But for example, as I walk up, sometimes I'll take my jacket off. Or do something that otherwise makes me feel like I'm owning the space. This makes me feel much more comfortable and puts me off to a good start. Even if you're not a confident person, walk up as if you are or do something simply to make you feel more comfortable.

3) Don't be afraid to use the space you have been given. This goes both for actually walking around, and using your arms to assist your words. Hands out of pockets. Use them.

4) Pauses are a good thing! Whether it's just to take a sip of water, or just a pause for the sake of pausing. This both gives you a few moments to collect your thoughts and also a few moments for the audience to digest what you have just been saying.

5) Slowww it down. It's almost too easy sometimes to rush talks when it comes down to actually presenting one. Take your time. They came to see you! So make it worth their while.

6) This is slightly tricky in some cases, but try to calibrate yourself towards the audience. For example, in my case, I've found people seem to pay more attention if I've just said something slightly amusing. If you can get away with it, go for it! It's a hard one to explain, but the bottom line is, try to get the crowd on the same page. I'll perhaps think of a better way of explaining this one and reply to this comment.

This is ludicrous, given that an interview and a tech talk are completely different things. In particular, an interviewer doesn't generally expect or hope to learn anything useful during an interview. That difference alone makes the situations not comparable.

it doesn't seem meaningful to involk anecdotal data

That anecdote is the only bit of data at hand. The comparison to interviews is mere wild speculation.