11–20 of 136 posts
I feel like while this is a great start for how to get practice giving talks, it could do with some expansion on how to make a great presentation.
That said, it’s not my strong suit. Others are far better at it than I am.
This is one of those areas where folks can make money/satisfy ego, so there’s a ton of competition. I’m not competitive, and am not interested in making money doing this kind of thing, so I don’t really try.
I do appreciate folks that are good at it, though; especially when I want to learn. A skilled orator can make learning a lot more fun, and can be very motivating.
>> Write a talk nobody else could do; tell a story nobody else can tell. Figure out what your audience is going to learn, and why you’re the best person to teach them that. That's an extremely high bar, no?
No, it means you have something unique to say. The bar is there, but it is lower than you expect. If you have a truly unique point of view to express, that brings some value to the table, slots will open up. And I've spoken at plenty of conferences. :) Not always in the glamour rooms/slots. But... I did have one talk fill a room out the door. That was a talk on a difficult/controversial topic, and by then... I was pr…
Some talks are plain craftswork, not unique experiences and still very worthwhile.
>> Write a talk nobody else could do; tell a story nobody else can tell. Figure out what your audience is going to learn, and why you’re the best person to teach them that. That's an extremely high bar, no?
You might want to spend time on some niche topic and there might be people who don’t have time to dabble in that topic but would be happy if someone did it for them.
>> Write a talk nobody else could do; tell a story nobody else can tell. Figure out what your audience is going to learn, and why you’re the best person to teach them that. That's an extremely high bar, no?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it means you have something unique to say. The bar is there, but it is lower than you expect. If you have a truly unique point of view to express, that brings some value to the table, slots will open up. And I've spoken at plenty of conferences. :) Not always in the glamour rooms/slots. But... I did have one talk fill a room out the door. That was a talk on a difficult/controversial topic, and by then... I was pr…
That doesn't mean every talk has to be unique and special. An "introduction to XYZ" talk may have a bunch of equally valid speakers, which all naturally provide a slightly different angle and there is a bunch of factors going in the decision about who gets the slot. Some talks are plain craftswork, not unique experiences and still very worthwhile.
I want to make the conference committee choose between "Do we want ilc's talk on X." or "Do we want foo's talk on Y." If we are both discussing the same thing, if I'm unknown, I will lose. OTOH, if I have something interesting to talk about... I have 2 routes to "victory". "ilc gives great talks, he gets good grades and is working on his skills." and "Man that's a damn cool topic. We want that at our conference, even if ilc isn't the BEST speaker, the combo is better."
I didn't start out as the best presenter. I learned. But I always knew I had to have an interesting topic, something that made it worth them giving me a slot.
> Finally, watch out for events that put video of their sessions online. Having a couple of YouTube links of you doing your thing in front of a live, appreciate audience can make all the difference when a programme committee is looking at a handful of talks and can only accept one of them. This, very much this. I run a paid, one-day, mid-sized conference every year, and with only so many slots, we find it very, very…
do you record and post videos of your own?