Technical Speaker Training Notes - Day 2
In session two last week, we covered the following:
Topic: The Nitty Gritty of Technical Talks
- o Demo-ing with code
- o Useful tools for technical demos/presentations
- o Things everyone hates
- o Failure recovery
- o Your failsafe list
I wanted to post a few references in case they might be useful to others.
THE FAILSAFE LIST
Everyone’s list is different, and that’s fine. Tailor your list to the types of presentations you do/want to do as well as things you know make you crazy or stressed.
General Planning:
- Who is the audience: Technical vs. Non-technical, breadth vs. depth, beginner vs. advanced.
- Build & test your demos.
- Test demos in a variety of conditions like no network, low battery, stressed OS.
- Check to make sure no applications are going to reboot or download fixes in the middle of your talk.
- Go over your slides enough so that you’re adding value to them, not reading them.
- Get familiar with your presentation application whether it’s PowerPoint, KeyNote, PDF, StandOut, etc. so that you know how to get a view that shows you time elapsed and speaker notes if possible.
- Get comfortable with your slide transitions, stories, and transitions into coding and demos.
- Practice with a mic + audio recording (good) and a video camera (better).
- Practice with a mirror (goood), a friend (better) and a group of friends (best!)
- Watch & listen to those audio & video recordings.
- Have a solution for no wireless access.
- If demoing code, use snippets or have a backup txt file on your desktop just in case.
- Send your slides to yourself via e-mail and/or share them on a server somewhere you can access from the venue just in case.
Ask the organizer:
- For the venue directions including room name or number.
- For a contact phone number.
- Will there be mics?
- Will there be an overhead projector?
- Is anyone filming or taking pictures?
- Do they need your slides ahead of time?
Before Leaving for the Venue:
Do you have:
- Laptop
- Backup laptop if needed (or a friend at the venue with a backup just in case)
- Power cable[s]
- Adaptors for plugs if needed
- A USB key with your slides (in multiple formats if appropriate)
- A watch, timer or phone to keep your eye on the time
- Pointer mouse/clicker/remote control if you use one
- Camera if you want photos taken
- Video camera if you want video taken + tripod
- USB modem/mini USB cable + phone or other backup wireless solution
- Extra batteries
- Chewing gum
- Any toiletries you may want (makeup, deoderant, etc.)
- Cab fare / Spare cash (Hey I have everything on my list)
- Other devices you may need (portable hard drive, xbox controller, robots, web cam, etc.)
Arrival at the Venue:
- Check your mic
- Check the overhead projector & connections
- Check the venue laptop if appropriate
- Don’t drink things like coffee/tea/soda/beer or anything else that makes you talk funny
- Ask for water on stage if you’ll need it
SPEAKERS TO WATCH
Alexia put up a great post on her blog with links and embedded videos to some of the folks mentioned. The post is here and it’s excellent.
Other people to watch and websites to visit for ideas on great speaking techniques:
- www.ted.com
- www.youtube.com –> search for technical presentation, keynote speaker, or similar words
- http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/slides.asp –> Scroll down for videos of the event speakers
- http://sessions.visitmix.com/
- http://tv.adobe.com/?sdid=ELUHV#se+MAX
- http://web20summit.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc
- http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3CF4A7FA9D08C658 (Le Web 2008 Conference)
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/teched/cc676818.aspx
Anything I missed? Please leave it in the comments for others. I know I have a couple of other things to add when I get my demo laptop back up & running. :)
Technical Speaker Training Notes - Day 1
In session one last week, we covered the following:
Topic: What Am *I* Supposed to Talk About?
o Finding your voice
o Coming up with topics/content/titles
o Building a story from your content
I wanted to post a few references in case they might be useful to others. I sent these in an e-mail to the training attendees, but wanted to post them here in case people want to add additional resources.
Books:
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Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
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Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte
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Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson
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The Exceptional Presenter by Timothy Koegel
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Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins by Annette Simmons
Podcasts:
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Quick and Dirty Tips: The Public Speaker: http://publicspeaker.quickanddirtytips.com/
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The Contrary Public Speaker: http://www.thecontrarypublicspeaker.com/podcast.asp
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Toastcaster Speakcast for ToastMasters: http://toastcaster.podbean.com/
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Communication Steroids: http://www.communicationsteroids.com/
And I saw this float across Twitter this evening & loved it: http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2009/02/20_tips_better_conference_speaking/
Any other resources you have? Post them in the comments, please.
Technical Speaker Training - Free
There are a lot of tech events in Ireland and Northern Ireland right now getting organized (OSS Barcamp, DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper Belfast, etc.), and not surprisingly, we’re seeing a serious dearth of female speakers. After talking with several women as to why this is, there was a very popular belief that it may have to do with training/experience. Women who haven’t spoken before may be shy to try it for the first time, and technical people in general aren’t often trained to speak publicly. In fact, for both men and women, public speaking rates quite high on many people’s list of fears!
So we put together some short, evening sessions to help those who have something to say. By technical women, for technical women.
The schedule is as follows. Each session is 1.5 hours and involves a very small group (max capacity ten), including hands-on practice and take-home exercises. We have three sessions scheduled with a fourth in the diary for either a session repeat or special requests (slide-building, for example). The sessions are for women only, and we’ll keep them very small (under ten) to allow adequate feedback for people.
Sessions will take place at the echolibre offices at 24 South William Street in Dublin city centre on Thursdays from 6pm - 7:30pm.
Speaker Night 1: Thursday, February 26th from 6pm-7:30pm
Topic: What Am *I* Supposed to Talk About?
o Finding your voice
o Coming up with topics/content/titles
o Building a story from your content
Speaker Night 2: Thursday, March 5th from 6pm-7:30pm
Topic: The Nitty Gritty of Technical Talks
o Demo-ing with code
o Useful tools for technical demos/presentations
o Things everyone hates
o Failure recovery
o Your failsafe list
Speaker Night 3: Thursday, March 12th from 6pm-7:30pm
Topic: Grooving and Improving
o Handling Q&A
o Techniques for self-improvment
o Critiquing your own performance
o Finding your honest feedback crowd
Speaker Night 4: Thursday, March 19th from 6pm-7:30pm
Topic: TBD – we’ll either repeat a session or do a special request like slide-building?
To register, just put your name in the comments section next to which session you’ll be attending (or say all if you want to attend all three). Please only register if you’re sure you’ll be attending, as we have very limited space. If they fill up, we will repeat sessions.
If you have comments or feedback about the training or there are additional topics you’d like covered, please e-mail me at martharo [at] microsoft.com.
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