Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare? • Hacker News Board

Re: Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare?

#51

Post by dominicgs » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 1:24 AM UTC

freework wrote: post #40

jnazario wrote: post #6

(speaking as someone who literally gave buttloads of presentations all over the world for over a decade) if you use slides i suggest reading cliff atkinson's blog "beyond powerpoint bullets". in it he lays out ideas, principles and templates for PPTs (and any other preso tools) that tell stories. these are based on cognitive studies, like the number of bullet points you should use based on how much your audience can…

I'm curious, how did you et into the 'speaking business'? It seems a lot of these conferences only invite people to speak who have already spoken at large conferences. I did a talk at a local usergroup (5 people attended) and I loved it. I want to give talks at bigger conferences, but my proposals always get rejected. It seems once the ball is rolling, it just keeps rolling. Got any advice?

A call for papers that I read yesterday seemed to sum this up well:

"Your submission will be judged by your ability to communicate succinctly in writing, how good we think the talk sounds, what other people say about you behind your back and whether, frankly, we feel like people are going to be happy they paid money to see you yap for an hour."

It sounds a little harsh, but I think it's true. Getting to know people involved in the community or conference organization will pay off.

It's a big leap to go from a short user group presentation to hundreds of people listening to you for an hour. So you should expect to spend time getting to know people and money on attending other events in order to get there.

Of course, if you have a truly awesome new idea that nobody else has thought of, you can skip that step, but very few people do.

Re: Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare?

#52

Post by xradionut » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 2:18 AM UTC

Practice at your local user group. We have several national known experts in the our field at the NTSSUG and they all do their dress rehearsals for larger conferences at meetings and regional conferences. And a majority do virtual meetings, video blogs and teach classes.

Re: Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare?

#53

Post by pseut » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 3:02 AM UTC

redacted wrote: post #47

pseut wrote: post #28

This won't apply to most people, but if your talk involves any math at all , use LaTeX + Beamer (www.math.binghamton.edu/erik/beameruserguide.pdf) to prepare pdfs of your slides. They will look much better. The beamer user-guide also has a chapter on presentation preparation. You can export outlines from Emacs org-mode as pdf slides via beamer, which can be (depending on the version, etc) a little fiddly but is much…

If you are on a Mac, try LaTeXiT [0] + Keynote. Type in your equations/math, hit render, drag the PDF (or many other image formats) to your slide. LaTeXiT gives you the best of both worlds; wonderful rendering of math, with the bonus of using Keynote (which is the best presentation software on any platform in my experience). [0] http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/

That looks nice; part of the advantage of beamer, though, is that the equations and (especially) inline variables are automatically positioned correctly and consistently -- it looks like that might not be the case for LaTeXiT.

Re: Crap I'm speaking at [insert conference here]. How do I prepare?

#54

Post by guiambros » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 7:07 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #17

These are good tips. On the subject of practising: doing a test run in front of real human beings is definitely ideal, but it's not always possible (especially if you've left preparation a little late...) - in the absence of that, it's really, really important that you practice the talk out loud. Even if it's to an empty room, doing it out loud will help ensure your pacing is right and that what you are saying makes…

That's the key step to me. Rehearse and rehearse. When you're done, rehearse again.

Seriously, it is that important. At the beginning I used to think that _"nah, I've already done the slides, I know the subject inside out, and can always improvise. It sounds more natural"_. Wrong. This way you just sound unprepared.

As you practice, the flow gets tighter, you tell the same story with fewer words, paints a more colorful story. You start to see more clearly the holes in your thought process, and even jokes become more natural.

This is particularly important when doing a group talk. When you have multiple speakers, then you definitely need to practice, because it's not just about you anymore, and the quality of the entire talk will be determined by the weakest link.

For really important talks, five is the magic number. 5 full runs start to finish, non-stop, timed with a stopwatch. A good devil's advocate as audience helps (to take notes while you're presenting), but even that is not critical, provided you rehearse enough times.