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Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#21

Post by davnicwil »

mmv wrote: post #17
penpapersw wrote: post #13

Be really knowledgeable about something that other people are really interested. Find an angle of that thing that nobody's really looked at yet. Pitch that talk to places whose audiences are into that kinda thing.

But don't hold yourself too much if you think you're not too knowledgeable about something to present about it. You may be deterred by watching some talks where the presenter seems awesome and seems to know so much more than you. You don't have to be the top expert on a topic in order to know a few things worth sharing.

This is absolutely the case, and I think an important addition is that usually there's only a very small percentage of the audience who are already knowledgable enough about something to benefit from hearing a truly world-class expert talk about it.

Most people go to tech meetups, even very specific or niche ones, hoping simply to pick up a few tips or an introduction to something from somebody who used it in anger. You don't have to be an authority on something to just learn a few lessons from using it and pass them along.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#22

Post by digitalzombie »

???

I volunteer to give at meetup groups that I'm in and they asked often.

Some conventions asked for tech talk, I'm probably doing one next year.

Also my college clubs I do one.

I also have a group of friends where we just group study and I do tech (mostly machine learning/algorithm) talk with them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#23

Post by dannysu »

Giving a tech talk is a great way to learn things. Having to explain something to another person forces you to clarify your own understanding of something.

I sometimes would force myself to do a talk to learn.

One suggestion I have is to find something that you still find "magical", then learn about it. At the end you will have a topic worthy of a tech talk. E.g. how does a JavaScript minifier work? or how does smartphone device image (ROM) format work?

By "magical" I mean you don't understand how it works and it does things almost like magic. Computers are not magical, so you can gradually turn magical things into in-depth knowledge.

Chances are that things you find magical are equally magical to other people. And then to get started, maybe start within your company or go to meetups with relevant topic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#24

Post by blakesterz »

I've been on both sides of this, as a speaker, and as a conference planner. If you can, volunteer to be a planner, you'll see that it's (sometimes) rather challenging to find people to speak (at least in my area).

Find something you want to talk about and there are many places willing to let you talk already, both local and national.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#25

Post by snarf21 »

alanfranz wrote: post #8

1) Start small. Start in your company. Then go to local user groups (LUG, universities, etc). Then submit applications to small/local tech conferences, then go on to large ones. 2) Read something about the topic, e.g: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Public-Speaker-Scott-Berk... (there're tons of other books and resources, I won't provide everything here) 3) Speak about something you know very well. 4) Reharse. One…

The most important thing about your talk is refinement and practice. Keep cutting and cutting until you've distilled it. Just like making a product, the hardest part is knowing what to take out.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#26

Post by samueloph »

One thing i like to do is:

Watch other people's talks that are on the same subject you'll want to speak.

Make notes (mental or in paper) about what you think that talk missed, what could be improved, please bear in mind the POV of the target audience.

Go to the extra mile, always focus on bring some trivias that people can ~visualize~.

For example, when i give talks about Debian[#]: I know that a lot of people likes to tell the story of how Debian release 1.0 went wrong because InfoMagic accidentally released a cdrom containing a development release of Debian as 1.0[1], but few people show the actual cd containing that release, so i like to put that[2].

Almost everyone also mentions about the relationship between debian's logo and buzz lightyear's chin, but almost none show or say something about the two pre-toy-story logos[3].

These examples represent only one of the few things i think one have to focus when doing talks, and may look silly, but i like to value them because they'll be one of the things that attendees won't forget easily plus are always fun to know.

Also, the presentation i referred has some other problems, please just note the referred pages.

[#]please note that i don't think i'm a good talk'er yet, just sharing my experience.

[1]https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-releas... [2]http://debianbrasil.org.br/articles/0170/7708/introducao-ao-... [3]http://debianbrasil.org.br/articles/0170/7708/introducao-ao-...

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#27

Post by agentultra »

If you want to talk at a local meet up group it's usually an informal process to introduce yourself to the organizers and pitch an idea.

If you want to speak at a larger conference you'll have to keep an ear to the ground for a "Call for Proposals" or CFP. This is a more formal process where you'll have to pitch your talk and make it through the selection process. Some conferences are more friendly to beginner speakers than others such as Pycon.

That's how I started. I've done about 5 or 6 talks now that have ranged from very small, informal talks to larger ones where I was speaking to a room of a hundred or so people. You don't have to be an expert right away or aim to be a keynote speaker. It takes practice and that might not be what success means to you anyway.

The biggest talk I did I had planned for months. I had done a lot of work and research for it. It was at Pycon in 2014 [0] iirc. I travelled with my family out to Montréal to give it. I was really, really excited: I was about to talk about procedural generation and algorithms for game design... when the night before I was to give the talk my daughter had come down with a stomach virus. My partner and I spent the night in an emergency room and I didn't get any sleep that night. I was a wreck on stage the next day. I'd cut out a bunch of content in the morning after rehearsing one more time, afraid I wouldn't be able to get through it, and when it came time to give the talk I rushed through most of it and had 10 minutes to spare at the end.

Despite how bad I felt it had gone more than a few people shook my hand after and had good things to say. A younger person there said it was the best talk they had heard all day. I'll never forget that.

I love teaching and speaking. It can be fun. But you don't have to be the best speaker to get started. You just have to put it out there and start giving talks. After a dozen or so I think I might start getting the hang of it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2YxsHPIfA

Update added link to talk

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#28

Post by tjr »

alanfranz wrote: post #8

1) Start small. Start in your company. Then go to local user groups (LUG, universities, etc). Then submit applications to small/local tech conferences, then go on to large ones. 2) Read something about the topic, e.g: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Public-Speaker-Scott-Berk... (there're tons of other books and resources, I won't provide everything here) 3) Speak about something you know very well. 4) Reharse. One…

For some additional practical tips, see also Patrick Winston's "How to Speak" talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbmPuhuFv0&list=PL9F536001A...

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#29

Post by Spooky23 »

Have a purpose.

People give talks to get something. Do you want a job? To make money? Peddle something? Get clients?

Then look for little events that are hard up for speakers. Hang out and talk to folks and you'll build up a critical mass and hear about better opportunities.

Re: Ask HN: How do you start giving tech talks?

#30

Post by pimterry »

koolba wrote: post #20
mparr4 wrote: post #16

My strategy: just sign up. I find the social pressure to avoid failing miserably in front of an audience is sufficiently motivating. Local meetup groups are great, as is giving a talk at your company. If I'm giving a talk, I like to give the same talk to both audiences.

Huge +1 to this plan. Nothing compels one to to learn to swim like being thrown into a shark tank. For shrinking the overall size of the endeavor, a lot of conferences / meetups have a lightning talk section so rather than filling in 45-60 min of time, you've only got to do about 5 minutes, usually with a hard cut off. It's a great way to get your feet wet.

+1, lightning talks are amazing as a speaking opportunity. They're drastically less scary than a 40 minute talk, so it's easy to give it a go with a simple talk without much prep, and as you gain experience they're an amazing place to practice honing more complex topics down to their essential essence.

They're also a great place for comedy, if you're into that sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3xuvPPBPM4

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