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So you want to speak at software conferences?
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Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#22> 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…
I don't want videos of me online. Would an audio recording + slides suffice in your opinion? Or would you doubt it was really live in front of a sufficiently large audience? Idk how common fraud here would be
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#23> 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…
I don't want videos of me online. Would an audio recording + slides suffice in your opinion? Or would you doubt it was really live in front of a sufficiently large audience? Idk how common fraud here would be
Personally I would find a video that's slides with audio just as compelling as a video where the speaker was visible in terms of helping me understand if that person could give a competent presentation or not.
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#24>> 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?
That's how I read it as well. I think it's wrong because I've learned the most from people one step ahead of me. Experts who are ten steps ahead have the curse of knowledge: it's extra hard to figure out what things make sense to a conference audience. Many presentations go too fast and then too slow two minutes later
Someone who just learned a thing is in the best position to give you the diff to learn it as well. At least, that was my experience running a blog as a teenager. I wrote about cool things I just learned or realised and people found that useful
Edited to add: Also, impostor syndrome. With this as the "first step" advise, you'll select people who are full of themselves and nobody else would give presentations unless their topic is super niche (not useful for most people) or they got lucky to see some big story up close (if you had a front seat during a Github outage, say). The latter is both interesting and fun but it's not the only type of talk I want to see
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#25>> 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?
One of the best topics for new speakers is "here's what I learned when I built project X".
Nobody else in the world could give that talk, because they didn't build that project.
It doesn't matter if you're not presenting anything that's ground breaking and new - what's important is that your audience gets to benefit from the same lessons that you learned.
Even if some members of the audience already knew those lessons, hearing a new way of explaining them - with new supporting stories - is still valuable.
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#26I 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.
One tip I've found really useful over the past few years is to always try and include a "STAR moment" in a talk - where STAR stands for "Something They'll Always Remember".
Effectively it means try and have at least one memorable surprise or gimmick in your talk. If someone watches a dozen talks at a conference you want them to be able to say "Oh, I remember your talk, it was the one with ..." when they meet you in the corridor.
I deployed my pelican on a bicycle benchmark as a STAR moment last year and it was really effective: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/6/six-months-in-llms/
At PyCon a couple of years ago I used a vibe-coded counter of the number of times I said "AI" out loud: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/14/pycon/#pycon-2024.043....
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#27> 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…
I don't want videos of me online. Would an audio recording + slides suffice in your opinion? Or would you doubt it was really live in front of a sufficiently large audience? Idk how common fraud here would be
I feel like if you don't want videos (and I assume photos) of you online then speaking at a conference is probably not the aligned action to pursue that goal
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#28I have run a ColdFusion users group in East Lansing for the past twenty five years. I have helped many first time speakers and this is some outstanding advice.
Although I have never done it myself I can also recommend Toastmasters. Seen some speakers soar after attending this group for a year. You wouldn't even think that it was the same person presenting. Having that experience of public speaking can also greatly accelerate your career.
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#29> 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…
Okay, but what about the first time?
Re: So you want to speak at software conferences?
#30FOMO is the only reason people attend conferences, which is why I visited a few to figure out whether I was missing out on anything.
Speaking at a conference? Same story. You do it, because it's for "personal development", until it's pointless.
Conferences have n00bs and PMs, not the experts, because they don't need to learn anything anymore.