Presenting

I've given a number of talks - from lightning talks to full-length talks, and in both English and Japanese. Not all of them went well, so I'd like to share a few things I've learned over time.

Keep the slide minimal

The more information you pack onto a slide, the more the attention of the audience wanders, and the harder it is for you to narrate it. The best kind of slide is a single-statement or single-visual slide that focuses the audience on the subject at hand, delegating to your narration to provide any extra detail.

Avoid technical deep-dives

It is very hard to pull off a good code-level talk. Your audience will inevitably have differing levels of technical familiarity and interest, and more often than not, it's far more appropriate to provide the information as text to allow users to work through it in their own time.

Make the font jumbo

Using a large font (say, 48pt) forces you to be economical with words and avoid overpacking your slides - and of course, makes everything more legible for the audience. If you're presenting code, showing anything more than 10 lines on a slide is playing with fire.

Turn text into visuals

If you can express something visually, do so! A good pie chart is far more evocative than a bullet-point list of data, and makes a stronger impression on the audience.

(Of course) don't read the slide

This is classic advice, but it bears repeating. The slide should frame the topic and summarise the takeaways, but the audience should be paying their attention to you.

I'd go one step further and encourage ad-libbing. A talk is far more engaging when there is no script, and you're just living and breathing the content. Use the slides to keep on track, but always speak from the heart.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

As a basic courtesy to your audience (especially if they paid to see the talk), it's imperative to rehearse. Make sure you can deliver the talk in the expected length of time, and take note of any rough patches. If there are any slides or transitions that you struggle with, it's a good sign that you ought to go back and adjust the slides.

Go slow

The worst sin of all is to go through the talk at double speed to pack everything in. If you find yourself doing this, start deleting slides and reduce the talk down to just the bits that truly matter. A talk should be relaxing for both you and the audience.

Go easy on the speaker profile

People are there for the talk, not to hear your whole CV and how great you are, so keep the speaker profile brief. While many prefer to give it up-front (perhaps to assure the audience of their authority as a speaker), I actually prefer to let the talk speak for itself and only attach my profile at the end.