Docs and Blog Posts and Talks

• My InSimpleTerms blog (Presenting category)
• There is a video available of me doing a whole talk on this topic.
  • Sadly I can’t share it because it was an internal workshop at Made Tech and contains video footage of workshop participants whose permission I don’t have for sharing.
  • (Note for Clare: It’s currently in MT google drive / for sharing and also in OneDrive / for sharing)

Effective use of different presentation tools

See separate page.

Asking for feedback after a talk

What thing did I do that was most helpful to you? What thing could I have done to help you more?

Keeping track of talks submitted and delivered

I have various things that I do:

• I have a public-facing web page which lists upcoming and previous talks - v simple to keep updated, means that I can just share it with people who want to know more, and also means I can keep track of what I’ve talked about, when and where. I frequently refer to it, it’s really useful: https://medium.com/a-woman-in-technology/events-28336c2586df. The page also contains links to event websites and any videos released after the event, which is also useful.
• I have a folder in the cloud with sub-folders for all events, and for each event I keep things like: A copy of my submission for that event, a copy of my notes, a copy of any presentation I’ve created. It’s particularly useful to keep a copy of submissions in a central place, as a lot of them are submitted via webforms which are not easy to return to - worth the minor overhead of copying text from a webform into a doc - particularly as I often reuse submissions for multiple events
• I have a Trello board with ideas for new talks
• I have a spreadsheet listing events I have submitted to and am considering submitting to, with info like whether they pay travel and expenses, when the submission deadline is, etc
• What I don’t have is anything indexed by talk title - my folder structure effectively indexes by event - but that’s fine because I tend to tweak each talk for each event so it means I have a snapshot of what the talk looked like when I delivered it for that event. Also I can just scan / search my web page listing talks.

Quick tips for writing and delivering a talk / public speaking

• There is a video available of me doing a whole talk on this topic. It’s not currently publicly available but I’m happy to share it if you contact me (you can DM or @ me on Twitter).
  • (Note for Clare: It’s currently in MT google drive / for sharing and also in OneDrive / for sharing)

Quick tips:

Connecting with the audience

• Tell a story - think about beginning, middle and end. Take the audience on a journey
  • Good stories have conflict, turning points and resolution
    • Start with a problem (illustrated with personal colour), then get to a solution via at least one “aha” moment
• Tell small stories to illustrate individual points
• Make it personal if you can. Include your own experience and how things make you feel. Be honest
  • Try to connect with the audience. Engage with them
  • Relax. Use humour
  • Be intimate and friendly
• Be honest but confident
  • Be honest about any shortcomings, but don’t apologise (unless it really is appropriate)
• Encourage interaction
  • Think of ways to enliven things
  • Ask questions
  • Throw sweets to people who answer
  • Ask for contributions from the floor
  • Ask people to pair up and discuss something for a minute or so
• Make eye contact with the audience (if you can)
  • Keep doing repeated sweeps of the audience
    • If you’re terrified, you might find it easier in the first instance (while you build your confidence) to plant a friend in the audience, instruct them to smile and nod at you encouragingly throughout the talk, and only make eye contact with them while you gain your confidence. But once you get past that, try to look at other people too
  • If you can’t make eye contact (for instance because remote), encourage the audience to use chat / Q&A functions to interact with you and give you feedback, then make sure you’ve arranged your screen so you can see it
  • If remote: Arrange your screen so you can see chat / Q&A / audience and also your notes, and make sure you’re looking direct into the camera instead of off to one side (if you have multiple screens)
    • If you’re using Powerpoint, you can click the Display Settings button at the top of the screen (while presenting) and select “Swap Presenter view and slide show”, to make sure that your notes are on the screen that has your webcam attached - so that you can be looking straight ahead (which will make the audience feel like you’re making eye contact), instead of off to one side
    • There are tips here on arranging your screen with Google Slides

Confidence: Things you might worry about but actually there’s no need

• The audience are your friends, they do not wish you harm
  • If they do, that’s their problem not yours
  • But it’s VERY VERY UNLIKELY
• If people ask questions you don’t know the answers to, it’s fine to be honest
  • “Not my area of expertise”
  • “I’d have to look that up”
  • “Maybe there is somebody else in the room who can answer that?”
• Trust yourself - you know your own material
• If you can remember what it felt like when you didn’t know what you know now, that will help to remind you that nobody knows everything and there will always be audiences out there who don’t yet know what you know
• If somebody dominates the discussion / asks too many questions
  • Tell them you’ll take it offline
  • “We probably haven’t time to go into that in depth – catch up with me later”
  • “There’s somebody at the back there who’s been waiting to ask a question”
• Hostile audiences are very rare (it’s not something I’ve ever encountered to any significant degree, and I’ve done a LOT of talks). But if you do encounter them:
  • It isn’t personal
  • Disassociate yourself – their aggression is directed towards what they believe you represent, not you personally
  • Stay calm
  • Deep breaths, lower your shoulders, speak slowly
  • Don’t enter into arguments with individuals – just state facts
  • Try not to be defensive
• Ideally you’re doing this because you want to
  • If you really really hate the idea, maybe you don’t have to do it?
  • I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s a necessary part of being an industry professional
• THE AUDIENCE ARE YOUR FRIENDS

Delivery

• Don’t write it out as a script unless you are supremely confident at your script reading / performing skills, or if you’re totally terrified and it helps to calm you (see below)
  • You’re much more likely to get good results if you write out simple bullet points (see below), then use them as prompts and allow the actual words to come out naturally on the day
    • This will make it sound much more relaxed and less stilted
  • If you are terrified, you might find that a script helps to calm you down. If you are only doing small presentations to your colleagues and your first priority is to get yourself up there without collapsing from terror, then a script might help with that. But once you have built up some confidence and are more relaxed, I would encourage you to try and ditch the script
• Write VERY simple notes, in bullet point format
  • You can write them on cards (one card per slide) or use the notes section of your presentation software
  • Cards mean you don’t have to rely on being able to see a laptop screen
    • …and you have backup if technology fails
    • For this reason it’s also worth printing out a copy of your slides
    • (Clearly I wrote this note before lockdown, LOL - but fingers crossed there WILL come a day when we can deliver talks in person again)
  • Bullet points are a really simple way to create talk notes that allow you to see the outline of the talk at a glance and check its shape while you’re writing it
  • Keep the bullet points really short and simple
  • Give yourself room to improvise and add colour beyond your bullet points
    • This will really bring your talk alive
    • It also gives you space to make the talk longer or shorter according to how much time you have
    • The less you prescribe the content, the more room you have to ad lib / respond to the circumstances on the day
    • It also means you spend less time on prep!
• Keep an eye on the clock, and be prepared to remove stuff / add colour if necessary
• Speak slowly
• If you find yourself getting anxious, drop your shoulders, take a deep breath, and talk slowly
• Don’t worry if you miss stuff out. Nobody will ever know!
  • If they really need it, they will ask you questions
• Practise in advance
  • Time it
    • You will probably find it takes longer than you think, and you need to remove some content
  • Practise with a friendly audience
    • Ask them for feedback, then act on it if you agree with it
    • Make your own notes on what worked and what didn’t - tweak things accordingly
    • Practise again if you need to
• Be prepared to cut sections short if you run out of time
  • It’s fine. They don’t know what they never saw
• Encourage questions and discussion
  • Leave room for it at the end
  • Repeat questions so that everyone can hear
    • This is really important! It’s very rare that everyone in the room can hear what questions are being asked, and it’s SO frustrating for the audience to hear an answer without knowing what the question was
    • Also if the talk is being recorded, the question is probably not audible on the recording

Talk structure

• First 45 seconds: Frame the problem in an innovative way, to grab the attention of the audience.
• Have five main points, and (supposedly) don’t go beyond five… the optimum is three points!
  • They can be broad categories though
  • I confess I often break this rule! It doesn’t seem to do me much harm :o)
• Tell them what you’re going to say, then say it, then tell them what you’ve said
• How will you end the talk?
  • End it on a high
  • Principle of recency: People remember first what they hear last
  • Reiterate the most important points

Talk content

• What are you trying to communicate? What is your message, in 10 words?
  • This will help you to structure your talk and decide what to include and what to leave out
• Talk about what you know
• Talk about what you’re enthusiastic about
• If you can remember what it felt like when you didn’t know what you know now, that will help you to imagine what your audience feels like and what content they need
• Don’t worry about whether anyone else has spoken on this topic before or whether others know more than you. You’re there to tell YOUR story, and there’s plenty audience to go round
  • Remember there was a time when you didn’t know what you know now
  • There are ALWAYS people who don’t know what you know yet. Those people will benefit from your material
• The title does not have to tell the audience what you will talk about! The title can create curiosity
  • The same goes for the blurb / description
  • You will almost certainly be writing the blurb yourself
    • Don’t expect the event organisers to do it for you!
    • Often conference organisers will use your abstract / conference submission as the talk description in the conference programme
• Know your audience
  • Either tailor the content to them, or specify in advance / make clear what audience this content is for
• Less is more
  • Keep it simple
  • Not too many slides
  • Don’t over-fill your slides with detail
    • Minimal words on slides
    • Images are better than words
    • Keep diagrams v simple
    • Make sure graphs have well labeled axes
    • Otherwise, your audience are so busy trying to read / understand your slides, they’re not able to listen to YOU
  • No need to waste hours carefully crafting your slides
    • It can be very time consuming and is not necessary!
    • YOU DON’T ACTUALLY NEED SLIDES
      • If you are short on time and you know what you want to say, just make some notes and talk direct to the audience
      • I often do this when I don’t have time to prepare slides
        • Or if I want a more intimate effect, and want people to really focus on what I’m saying
  • Don’t over-fill your talk with content – leave room for breathing and silence
    • Otherwise you will overwhelm your audience - they won’t keep up, their attention will drift
  • Your talk is almost certainly too long
  • You are not teaching a course. There’s a limit to how much information you can effectively inject into people’s heads during one talk. You can’t expect them to walk away knowing everything there is to know, so don’t even try
  • Leave them excited to find out more