Ugh, I watch a lot of conference videos, I have more donts than dos. Things that make me turn off a video.

- Yes, tell me who you are, and why i should listen to you. But keep it to 1 slide, and 1 minute. I shouldn't be able to walk away and come back literal 5 minutes later and have you still yammering about yourself. especially for a 15 minute lightening talk.

- Your talk title should be the agenda. I do NOT need a slide by slide table of contents for your talk, or you reading out the table of contents.

- Accents, even heavy ones, aren't much of a problem. Looking anxious isn't a problem, i feel you there. However, You mumbling is. Being overly monotone is. Looking bored yourself doesn't help. People are there because they _know_ you have something their interested to say, you can be confident that people will listen.

- Get to the point. Seriously. I shouldn't be able to scrub ahead 10+ minutes and not have you talking about the topic at hand. Please don't explain the basics, like what a web browser is, when your audience is a web dev conference.

-Cut the fluff. Especially if you're adhd or other neuro diverse, you need to work to stay on topic. It _might_ help if you write a script, and have someone go through and mark anything off topic. Even if you don't use the script on stage, writing it and having it might anchor you to the topic at hand.

You don't need to be perfect on stage. We'll all forgive a lot that happens in a talk. We've all experienced the wrath of the demo gods. We get it, you're cool. BUT only if you're actually giving your talk. Note that most of my complaints circle around not actually giving your talk while you're on stage.

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monocasa 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Cut the fluff. Especially if you're adhd or other neuro diverse, you need to work to stay on topic. It _might_ help if you write a script, and have someone go through and mark anything off topic. Even if you don't use the script on stage, writing it and having it might anchor you to the topic at hand.

This one depends. I agree with you probably 4 out of 5 times it happens, but that other 20% are probably some of the best, most memorable talks.

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sharkjacobs 6 days ago | parent [-]

I don't know of any examples which match what you're describing, except for some things which were captivating train wrecks, and I don't think they accomplished what the speaker was trying to do very well.

Do you have any examples you could link to, or were they all live events?

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wilkystyle 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Bryan Cantrill's Oracle rant:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m1s

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xmprt 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't see fluff there. Every sentence was pointed and served a purpose.

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tibbar 5 days ago | parent [-]

It's an amazing rant, but he's still going off on tangents: what is worthwhile in life? And how horrible is Oracle? No really, let's just ROAST oracle. Wait that reminds us of Larry Ellison. He really is the worst, have you heard these stories?! Don't anthropmorphize him, he's a lawnmower!

If you look at the single slide that all of this is sparked by, you can see that these are just (amazing) rants. He's telling the story of Illumos, and that reminds him of the pure evil of Oracle and the meaning of life, and he keeps letting himself drift from the topic to savor those points over and over. He is very quirky, and thinks about things in very quirky ways, and he's just letting the whole audience enjoy that for a bit.

That's why this is such a great illustration of OP's point.

	▲	xmprt 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm looking at those tangents as part of the scope of the talk. When you're talking about someone's unique perspective of the history of some event, you want all those opinions and rants in there. If it was just a list of slides talking going from event to event, that'd be extremely boring.

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jamesblonde 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

James Mickens - amazing speaker. Check this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k

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butlike 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Jacob Thorton - Cascading Shit Show might fit the bill

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neilv 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You don't need to be perfect on stage.

Yes. Focus on giving a talk of value, and reasonably engaging, but don't be afraid to be humble and authentic, and don't try to be a TED-grade smooth salesperson.

See my TED talk on this: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=onion+talks

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baxuz 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Accents, even heavy ones, aren't much of a problem.

I strongly disagree. I stopped watching Chrome DevTools update videos a few years back because I have difficulty understanding the presenter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOodTLAjPsE

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triceratops 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sounds fine to me. Not even in the top 10 heaviest accents I've heard in my career.

	▲	bakje 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If English isn’t your first language it can be very hard to understand someone if they have an accent you’re not used to.
	▲	baxuz 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's not in my top 10 either, but I don't have examples of those. I can understand her if I'm try hard, but I think that listening to a speaker shouldn't require active effort in order to understand them.

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socalgal2 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is this a problem solved by current or near current tech? Like (1) you can read the transcript or captions (2) you can get it respoken by some tech?

I guess I'm used to those accents though.

I wouldn't have brought this up but I recently ran into an auto translated youtube video. I have my youtube set to Japanese. I watched a presentation I know was in English but Youtube presented it with Japanese voices. I didn't actually want that and couldn't find how to turn it off but I was still impressed. So maybe that can add dialets so you can choose California English and someone else can choose Singlish and someone else can choose Scotish English, etc...

	▲	jen20 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t know which accent this is referring to, but if I was going to read the transcript I’d rather it was just a post which had also been edited.

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agos 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

that's a really tough accent. luckily the video has excellent subtitles, which reminds us that accessibility is important for everyone, not only for the impaired

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hluska 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your donts are all about nervous people lacking experience. But people who are nervous about speaking will read this, recognize themselves and be even less likely to gain the experience to overcome their nerves.

Each of those can be fixed with practice. You don’t need notes or a script, you just need appropriate practice. There are proven methods, many opportunities to practice them and even more people who will help. Most importantly though, it’s okay to screw up when you’re nervous and each of these donts is totally fine. They’re things to work on and reasons to keep practicing with reasonable, skilled speakers.

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jasonlotito 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Each of those can be fixed with practice.

Practice can and should be done before giving the presentation to the public. You should record yourself and watch it back.

If you consider practice to just be giving presentations in front of people at a conference, I'm sorry, but no. For example, if you want general practice: seek out your local Toastmasters.

> Your donts are all about nervous people lacking experience.

They aren't. Many of them has nothing to do with lacking experience.

> You don't need notes or a script,

Technically, no, but that's like saying you technically don't need a windshield on a car, or doors, or numerous other things. I have no issue getting up and giving a presentation, and I still use notes.

> Most importantly though, it's okay to screw up when you're nervous and each of these donts is totally fine.

It depends on the context. I'm sorry, but using a conference as your means of practicing is not considerate. People spent money to be there. Often thousands in tickets, travel, and hotels. Speakers frequently get compensated as well. So no, it's not totally fine.

At a local meetup which is usually free? Sure. At some presentation you give at work? Great. There are numerous other ways to get practice, but the context of this thread is conference talks.

As someone who has helped people become speakers at conferences and colleges, I think rather than babying them, it's important to provide clear and actionable guidance.

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tuckerman 6 days ago | parent [-]

At conferences I've attended I think it's extremely rare to have a speaker be compensated (maybe outside of the cost of flights/hotels). Perhaps this colors my view on the situation and might be true of the other folks here who are more open to novice presenters.

Also, it's more than reasonable to expect someone to rehearse, but I don't think there is any substitute for the real thing. It's like the saying about testing... everyone tests in prod, just some people try test before that too.

	▲	jasonlotito 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> At conferences I've attended I think it's extremely rare to have a speaker be compensated (maybe outside of the cost of flights/hotels) Flights, hotels, and tickets are all compensation and what I was referring to. These conferences are all open to newer speakers. > Also, it's more than reasonable to expect someone to rehearse, Apparently not, judging by comments. > but I don't think there is any substitute for the real thing. But you don't need to go from not speaking to speaking at a conference. There are many other steps in between where you can get experience in public speaking.

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johannes1234321 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You don’t need notes or a script, you just need appropriate practice.

Especially inexperienced speakers should prepare notes or script to give it a structure and transmission from topic to topic.

Else one quickly ends up with a talk like "uh, now what's on this slide, oh, yeah" which takes out any flow and doesn't present a good flow of thought.

How much those notes are used and how much one can deviate makes the expert. But the better talks are well prepared.

You need to know what you want to talk about. What the key points are.

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jcattle 5 days ago | parent [-]

Agree, but then throw away (or only have them as backup) the notes during the actual talk. Find the sweetspot where you've practiced enough that you remember all the content and how the different parts flow into each other but haven't yet memorized your script entirely.

	▲	monocularvision 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I once read a book that could have been a pamphlet or maybe a paragraph that boiled down to “Don’t have a script you memorize, but do practice over and over and over and over and over until you feel entirely comfortable with the material”. This made an enormous difference in my ability to give talks.