- Need to be able to communicate ideas.
- Terminology - don’t use acronyms unless you know your audience completely understands them.
- Don’t make the title super long with lots of words.
- Capture the idea of the talk in a really quick way.
- Save the paragraph of information for the description of the talk.
- Bonus points for a catchy title.
- Nobody cares what your title is? Is the person talking on the microphone somewhat of an expert in what they are talking about?
- “I have been looking at X open source project.”
- “I have thoughts about so and so.”
- New people to conferences will create a template.
- Showing information about the speaker.
- Some speakers take it much too seriously.
- Don’t include this slide.
- Don’t add formality - only a formal event and not good for a conference with peers (don’t add Mr.)
- Agenda - should be an obvious flow to the talk. Must make it obvious.
- Allows understanding of what the mental model is.
- Too much information on a slide is a drag:
- In our brains, have one language processing core available. People will then look at the large amount of text on the slide, parse that and shut down the speaker.
- Words are fascinating to humans.
- Use short bullet points to signpost to your what you are telling the audience.
- Showing data is good - more explanation on a chart is good.
- Don’t put too much data though.
- For large amounts of data, have to build up to it first.
- Don’t close eyes, should be facing the audience at all times.
- Don’t read speaker notes.
- Notes are a crutch that we use as the main leg.
- Loses presence in the room entirely.
- Don’t read bullet points, they are just signposts.
- Keep presentation information down to what is actually required.
- “Call to Action” - delete these slides.
- Q&A - real-time presentations are great, back and forth is good.
- Should be 5 minutes of Q&A max - want to really push points across from the presentation and don’t want to answer questions that are specific to individuals in the room.
- Need flow to the talk - Beginning, Middle and End.
- Don’t add Speaker Notes - sparse notes at most.
- It matters more to have the attention of the audience and explain things mostly correctly.
- 2~3 ideas are good.
- Gradual Reveals Help.
- Simplify code on slide.
- Doesn’t matter if it is symantically or syntactically correct.
- Simplify text.
- Grammar and sentences are not important on slides.
- Don’t need to use bullet points - adds extra noise on the slides.
- Simplify sentences - don’t need a period at the end.
- Don’t go for jokes, go for something that is entertaining.
- Don’t script jokes in a presentation.
- Jokes can detract from the technical talks.
- Jokes also can’t land it.
- We’re not comedians and haven’t worked jokes in clubs after ages.
- Okay to add small jokes that don’t take time and shouldn’t care if they don’t land - move on.
- Project your voice - speaker louder - articulate and modulate voice -
- Use your body - need a clicker.
- If moving, make it purposeful - client and server discussion for example, move to the left for discussing the client and to the right when discussing the server.
- Waving your hands in the air is not helpful. Use your gestures to emphasise a point and make them purposeful.
- Eye contact.
- Don’t keep scanning the room, but look a few members for a while per person (not too long).
- Be in the Room - comment and start a conversation with the audience beforehand - makes the speaker present.
- Mitigates nervousness by talking with audience members.
- Be spontaneous - if something happens in the room, react to it.
- Don’t script talks and don’t rehearse.
- Don’t know what to say, before mouth starts speaking words.
- Have number of years speaking English, therefore can figure it out when mouth opens.
- Therefore when speaking words, becomes much more natural.
- Fine if the presentation is memorised (even poorly).
- Audience can see this easily.
- Consider having a co-speaker.
- Makes the talk more spontaneous - have no idea what each other is saying.
- The other person on stage can think of things - too busy to articulate it.
- Real-time conversation seen by the audience.
- Engage the audience.
- Be Real - don’t say “We’re so excited to announce”, if you’re not excited, don’t actually use the word.
- Express truth, but pick your words.
- Watch your tone.
- Specify the important points of your sentence and helps to communicate the ideas of the words.
- Come prepared enough - know the content really, really well.
- When see the words on each slide, should know exactly what you are talking about.
- Practice - the ability to be comfortable on stage.
- More important practice doing talks over and over again.
- Comedy, standup, improv, bunch of tech talks, internal tech talks and anything that allows you to get up in front of people.
- Video cable comes out - don’t freak out, just be flexible, step away from the laptop,
- Everyone is nervous when giving talks.
- Q&A - repeat questions from the audience.
- Don’t go on for too long - only answer a few questions, as they’ll relate to only a few people.
- Don’t worry too much.
- Die giving a presentation - worst thing that could happen. Not going to suffer from it though.
- Have fun with the presentation! Then the audience will also more thoroughly enjoy it.
