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Gr8Ladies June Meetup: Preparing a Tech Conference Talk

Gr8Ladies June Meetup: Preparing a Tech Conference Talk

Jenn's Portion of the slides for:
http://www.meetup.com/Gr8Ladies/events/221712442/

If you weren't there, the slides will probably seem out of context.

jlstrater

June 15, 2015
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  1. Overview 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM Food, Beverages, and Networking

    6:30 PM - Lightning Talks 7:30 PM - Group Exercise 8:00 PM - Closing and JetBrains Raffle
  2. Goals • Encourage more women to become conference speakers •

    Help prepare speakers for upcoming presentations
  3. Important Features • Presenter Mode • Editor/Format • Templates vs

    Customization • Ease of creating graphs and figures
  4. Don’t Practice • Just wing it on timing. Everyone loves

    a talk that gets over early? Right? • I’m a rockstar. I don’t need feedback.
  5. Don’t Record Yourself Practicing • Watch the pace ◦ Look

    for pacing, too many hand gestures, or not looking at the audience ◦ Listen for repetitive stall words (um, uh, etc)
  6. Every conference has great wifi • Experience: Links failed; Demo

    tried to load external dependencies • Lesson Learned: See if there is an offline mode
  7. Computer programs are always reliable • Experience: Program crashed three

    times while trying to display code • Backup Plan: Show Code on Github
  8. Demos always work • Experience: Something always goes wrong •

    Lessons Learned: ◦ Use a projector (the same one if possible) ◦ Use full-screen and/or presenter modes. ◦ Rehearse from beginning to end in multiple scenarios ◦ Have a backup code sample to skip to when live coding fails
  9. All you need is a laptop • Experience: Some conferences

    don’t have the right adapter for your machine • Lesson Learned: Bring your own!
  10. All you need is a laptop • Experience: Last minute

    room changes can mean different cables • Lesson Learned: Bring my own adaptors even if I didn’t need it the first day
  11. Only bring what you need • Experience: Fellow speaker’s laser

    pointer died during the presentation • Lesson Learned: Bring extra batteries
  12. Practice at the right venue • Code Camps are free

    and an easy place to start ◦ Attendees are generally encouraging and friendly • Go to an event where no one knows you ◦ Less intimidating
  13. Stay Calm • Be ok with being wrong • It’s

    ok to say, “let’s find out” and “let’s talk after”
  14. Set a “Plant” • Ask a question when there is

    silence • Give encouraging looks the speaker looks stressed or paniced
  15. Stand up to Hecklers • Don’t let a question take

    over your talk • Tell the person you will answer their question later • Stop acknowledging questions from bullies
  16. Next Steps • Presentation Patterns. ◦ http://presentationpatterns.com • Speaker Camp

    - Minneapolis ◦ http://chicagocamps.ticketleap.com/speaker- camp-minneapolis/details • FemTech School ◦ http://startupschool.tech.mn/ • Gr8Conf US ◦ http://gr8conf.us