Perhaps it's the fear of speaking in front of a large audience, the worry of forgetting your words, or the challenge of finding the perfect topic to discuss. You're not alone – many aspiring speakers face these same fears.

But creating an engaging conference talk is a skill that you can perfect with practice. In this tutorial, I will share effective tips for crafting compelling conference talks that captivate your audience and leave a lasting impact. I'll also provide examples of inspiring presentations that have influenced me.

If you're looking for a comprehensive guide on speaking at conferences, check out my video where I discuss topics such as finding a conference, preparing slides, delivering engaging talks, and networking.

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Know Your Audience

It's important to understand your audience's interests and needs to tailor your content effectively.

Audience Expertise and Interests

Before preparing your talk, consider the level of expertise your audience possesses. Are you addressing beginners who are eager to learn the basics, or are you speaking to seasoned professionals seeking advanced insights? Understanding this will help you customize your content accordingly.

Gather Insights

To gain valuable insights into your audience's preferences, talk to event organizers or conduct surveys. This will give you a better understanding of their expectations and what they hope to take away from your presentation.

Balance Fundamentals and Advanced Insights

If your audience consists of newcomers to the topic, focus on providing clear explanations of fundamentals, terminologies, and motivations.

On the other hand, if you have an audience with intermediate to advanced knowledge, dive into the nitty-gritty, discuss pros and cons, share opinions, and share real-life experiences.

Avoid Jargon Overload

Ensure that your content is accessible to everyone by avoiding excessive use of jargon. Make complex concepts understandable by using clear language and providing relevant context.

Gauge with Show of Hands

During your talk, you can engage the audience by doing a show of hands to gauge their familiarity with the topic. Based on their response, you can offer a brief 101-style introduction for those who are new to the subject, or dive directly into the main content if most of the audience is already familiar.

People responding to a question by show of hands

Work on the Core Content of the Talk First

When preparing your conference talk, focus on developing the core content and the compelling story you want to share. Design and templates can be addressed later – prioritizing your message is key.

Identify the Key Objective

Start by answering this question: What is the one thing you want your audience to take away from your talk? This objective will be the central theme around which you build your narrative.

For example, if the talk is on "Angular to React migration", your key objective could be - what are the steps developers need to take to migrate their Angular app to React app. From there, your entire talk outline could frame around providing developers the background and context for providing information on migrating from Angular to React such as introduction to angular and react, need for migration, challenges and considerations, migration strategies and codebase analysis.

Create a Mind-Map

I find it helpful to create a mind-map of the topics I'll cover, centered around the main point I want my audience to remember. This approach ensures that your talk flows logically and maintains a clear focus throughout.

Check out this example of mind map I saw on LinkedIn for a conference talk on "32 things to help English Learners become successful readers". Mind map is a great way to ensure the talk is aligned on the key concept.

Example of a mind map

Tell a Story

As humans, we like storytelling. Instead of just talking through your content, frame the story around why you are sharing this.

By telling a story that follows this format, you engage your audience on an emotional level, make your content more relatable, and leave a lasting impact.

Here’s a template I like for storytelling:

Introduce the Problem

Begin by describing a relatable problem or challenge you encountered. Paint a vivid picture to evoke empathy and interest from your audience.

Highlight the Impact

Illustrate the consequences and impact of the problem. Share the challenges and struggles you faced, allowing your audience to connect with your journey.

Present the Solution

Transition into the solution you discovered or devised. Explain how you tackled the problem and the thought process behind it. Make it clear why this solution was unique and effective.

Celebrate the Improvement

Describe how the solution improved your life or the lives of others involved. Share specific outcomes and successes resulting from your approach.

Embrace the Journey

Be honest about the ongoing nature of progress. Acknowledge that the journey may not be perfect, and there might be continuous efforts to maintain the positive changes.

Empower Your Audience

Provide actionable insights or advice for your audience to avoid or overcome similar challenges. Encourage them to apply your learnings to their own situations.

Structure Your Talk Thoughtfully

Start with a Captivating Hook

Begin your talk with an attention-grabbing introduction. This could be an intriguing problem you encountered, a humorous joke, a compelling personal story, or a thought-provoking question. The hook sets the tone for your talk and piques the audience's curiosity.

Keep Your Audience Anchored

Recognize that maintaining audience attention is crucial. To keep them engaged throughout, provide a clear roadmap at the beginning of your talk. Briefly outline what you'll be discussing, so the audience knows what to expect.

An example of outline that highlights which section is being talked about

Throughout your presentation, periodically remind them of the main points you're covering and where you are in the narrative.

Deliver Smooth Transitions

Practice delivering seamless transitions between slides and sections. This ensures that your presentation flows like a cohesive narrative.

Familiarize yourself with your content to the extent that you know what slide comes next. Using presenter's view can be beneficial to preview the upcoming slide discreetly.

Strategically Reiterate Main Points

Identify the core messages or key takeaways you want your audience to remember. Make a conscious effort to repeat these points at various stages of your talk, reinforcing their significance.

Use Visuals in Your Talk

A picture is a thousand words. We're naturally drawn to visuals rather than lengthy text.

Utilize a Variety of Visuals

Incorporate images, graphics, GIFs, diagrams, illustrations, and charts to visually convey your ideas and captivate your audience.

Visual elements help break the monotony of text-heavy slides and enhance the overall appeal of your presentation. Explore free platforms like Unsplash and Imgur to find high-quality visuals that align with the content of your presentation. High-resolution images and graphics add a professional touch to your slides.

Animate to Explain Concepts

Animations can be a great way to explain complex concepts dynamically. Consider using subtle animations to illustrate processes or step-by-step explanations.

As a reference, check out this talk with impressive animations explaining the JavaScript event loop.

Demonstrate with Demos

If your presentation includes a demo, start by showcasing the end product first. Then, take your audience through the process of building it step by step. This approach creates anticipation and helps the audience understand the context and value of your demo

AI-Generated Images

For a creative touch, consider using AI-generated images created with tools like DALL-E or Midjourney. These unique visuals can add a distinctive element to your presentation. Just make sure they don't contain too many odd/unexpected features. Check out this AI generated image I created of an avocado swimming in the ocean.

An example of an AI generated image of a halved avocado floating in water

Optimize Slide Design for Clarity

Creating visually clear and appealing slides is crucial to ensure that your conference talk is effectively delivered to all members of the audience, including those seated at the back of the room.

Here are essential tips to optimize your slide design:

Use Large Fonts

Opt for large, easy-to-read fonts that are visible from a distance. This ensures that even audience members at the back can comfortably follow your content without straining their eyes.

Large fonts from Zach Holman's talk on "How Github uses Github"

Use Concise Text

Avoid lengthy sentences on your slides. Keep the text concise and to the point. Too much text can distract the audience from your spoken words and diminish their focus on your message.

Avoid Information Overload

Refrain from cluttering your slides with excessive information. Stick to key points and use bullet points to convey your ideas succinctly. This allows the audience to grasp the main concepts without feeling overwhelmed.

Format Code Clearly

When presenting code, use tools like carbon.sh to format it in a clean and readable manner. This ensures that even complex code is understandable to your audience.

Code formatted with carbon.sh

Ensure Visible Contrast

Check the visibility and color contrast of your content against the background. Do a dry-run on the day of your talk to confirm that the slides are clearly visible on the projector or screen. Monitors can have varying color resolutions, so it's essential to be prepared.

An example of a slide with sufficient color contrast

Avoid Distracting Design

While visual elements can enhance your presentation, ensure that your design template doesn't distract from the main content. Keep it clean and professional to maintain focus on your message.

Avoid Over-Reliance on Presenter Notes

Presenter notes can be valuable tools for staying on track during your conference talk, but it's crucial to avoid relying on them too heavily.

Here are key points to consider when using presenter notes effectively:

Stay Natural and Engaging

Reading directly from presenter notes can make your presentation sound robotic and disengaging. Instead, aim to speak naturally and connect with your audience.

Familiarize yourself with the content to the point where you can convey it in a conversational manner. Treat presenter notes as aids rather than a script. They should serve as a helpful guide to remind you of key points, transitions, or specific details, but not dictate your entire presentation.

Practice Makes Perfect

Rehearse your talk multiple times until the content becomes ingrained in your memory. By knowing your material inside out, you'll be able to deliver it smoothly without relying solely on presenter notes.

Keep Your Audience Engaged

Keeping your audience engaged is essential to ensuring the success of your conference talk. By incorporating various interactive elements, you can captivate your listeners and maintain their interest.

Here are effective strategies to achieve this:

Inject Humor and Memes

Light-hearted humor and relevant memes can add a touch of fun to your presentation. Well-timed jokes and amusing visuals help create a relaxed atmosphere and make your talk more enjoyable.

Note on Jokes: If a joke doesn't land as expected, simply move on without dwelling on it. Avoid explaining the joke or making the audience feel uncomfortable for not getting it.

Interact with Your Audience

Engage your audience by asking them questions or encouraging them to participate in brief activities. Interactive elements make your talk more dynamic and involve the audience in the discussion.

Offer Quick Breaks

If your talk contains substantial content, consider giving the audience a quick break to recharge. This break can be as simple as taking a sip of water or pausing briefly to allow the audience to take screenshots of important slides.

Leverage Live Demonstrations

Live demos are excellent ways to immerse your audience in your topic. Letting the audience interact with your demos, ask questions, and explore the process hands-on keeps them engaged and interested.

Share Swag or Resources

If appropriate, consider offering swag such as stickers, or t-shirts. This can serve as an incentive for active participation and create a positive association with your talk.

Share Resources for Ongoing Engagement

Empowering your audience with valuable resources ensures that the impact of your conference talk extends beyond the event itself. Here are effective ways to share resources and foster continued engagement:

QR Codes for Accessibility

Make it easy for your audience to access your slides and additional resources by displaying QR codes at the beginning of your talk. By scanning the code, attendees can quickly access relevant materials on their devices. Check out this slide where I shared a QR code of a code demo.

An example of how to share QR code in your talk for code examples.

Tweet Links to Slide Deck

Increase accessibility by tweeting links to your slide deck a few minutes before your talk. This allows people to access the content during your presentation and refer back to it afterward.

Provide GitHub or CodeSandbox URLs

If you demonstrate a technical project, share the URL to the corresponding GitHub repository or CodeSandbox. This enables your audience to explore the project further and gain hands-on experience with the code.

Include Your Contact Information

Display your name and contact information on every slide, ensuring that attendees can easily reach out to you after the talk. This is particularly helpful if they want to share the slides or contact you for further discussions or inquiries.

An example of including your social handle at the bottom of every slide

Give Action Steps

Leave your audience with a call-to-action or "from here, do this" tasks related to the topic. This encourages individuals interested in learning more to take action and engage further with the subject matter.

Make it Relevant for Your Audience, Not Just You

Ensuring that your conference talk resonates with your audience is essential for creating a meaningful and impactful presentation. Consider the following points to make your talk relevant and valuable for your listeners:

Abstract the Problem and Solution

If you're sharing a talk about a problem you encountered and the solution you formed, abstract the problem to make it relatable for the audience.

Avoid overwhelming them with excessive technical details or specific scenarios that may not directly apply to their situations. Instead, focus on the core principles and broader implications that your audience can relate to and learn from.

Avoid Over-Marketing or Over-Selling

While it's natural to be passionate about your work or product, avoid turning your talk into a promotional pitch.

People attend conferences to gain knowledge and insights, not to be sold to. Provide valuable content that genuinely benefits your audience, and let the quality of your work speak for itself. Authenticity and value will naturally attract interest and followers.

Note on Self-Promotion: Subtly promote your social media presence at the beginning and end of your talk, but do so in a non-intrusive manner. Mentioning your Twitter handle or other social links during the introduction and conclusion allows interested listeners to follow you for more content without feeling overwhelmed by constant promotion.

Where to Find Templates

I'm a fan of simplicity when it comes to design templates. There are various sources to find templates, such as Envato or Canva. You can also hire a designer from platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to create a custom template for you.

Personally, I've refined my design template in Keynote over the years, and it's the one I use most frequently. This is the template I started off with.

Examples of Great Talks

• Zach Holman's Talk with Huge Fonts
• Jason's Talk with Great Fonts
• Andre's Funny Talk with Cool Animations
• Shaundai's Talk with Great Use of Visuals

Speaking at conferences is an enriching experience that allows you to share your passion and expertise with others. Following these tips will help you create powerful conference talks that leave a lasting impact on your audience. Embrace visuals, engage your listeners, and deliver valuable content that inspires and empowers others.

Remember, every great conference talk starts with a few seconds of courage. Take that step and share your knowledge with the world!

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In this article, I will talk about what I learned from Dr. Jennifer Akullian's freeCodeCamp Tech Talk and share her tips for reducing your stress and improving your mental health at work.

Mental Health Research for Tech Workers is Limited

One great resource that Dr. Akullian mentioned in her tech talk is the Open Sourcing Mental Illness non profit organization. OSMI is dedicated to raising awareness surrounding mental health in tech.

OSMI conducts a yearly Mental Health in Tech Survey, where tech individuals around the world can anonymously answer questions concerning their mental health in their workplace.

While this research is valuable to the industry, unfortunately it does have its limitations.

For one, this data only represents those who volunteered to take the survey. Since individuals cannot be forced to disclose their mental health issues, we are unfortunately not getting a full picture of what is going on in the tech industry.

Even in the past few years, the number of survey participants has gone down. In 2014 and 2016, there were over 1200 responses.

But from 2017-2020, it went from 756 to 180 survey responses. Unfortunately, there has been a huge decline in the number of participants which affects the research.

Mental health has always been a sensitive subject and there is a lot of stigma surrounding it. So, it doesn't surprise me that people don't feel safe participating in these types of surveys.

As Dr. Jennifer Akullian points out in her tech talk, there are a lot of serious physical health risks that accompany high stress jobs. If left unaddressed, these issues can lead to dire consequences.

Hopefully, we can get to a place in the future where we feel safe to discuss these issues and contribute to the ongoing research.

To learn more about OSMI, please visit their website.

How We Can Combat Stress in the Workplace

Dr. Jennifer Akullian provides four ways that you can de-stress at work and become a healthier, more productive worker.

SLEEP!

We all need to sleep. Sleep allows our bodies and minds to rest and recharge for the next day.

You might be in a situation where you have important deadlines coming up or annoying bugs in the application that you haven't solved yet.

But staying up and worrying about it isn't going to help the situation. You will probably be less productive in your job running on fumes all the time.

In her tech talk, Dr. Jennifer Akullian urges people to find out why they are not sleeping and seek professional medical help if necessary.

I have personally dealt with sleep issues over the years and figured I could just power through it. But over the past year, I have now learned that is not the healthy way to live and work.

Please take care of your body and mind. You need that time to rest and be ready to go the next day.

Stretch

Sometimes it is easy to stare at your computer and sit at your desk for long periods of time. But that is contributing to the stress and mental health issues facing people in the tech industry.

In her talk, Dr. Jennifer Akullian says,

stretching distributes oxygen to where it is needed, which is to your brain.

You don't need to do hardcore-style stretches. Just do some simple stretches throughout the day.

Get up out of your chair and stretch your back, neck and shoulders. Stand up and hang down over your toes for a little bit.

Make a conscious effort to get up and move a little every so often. Place Post-it notes on your monitor to remind you.

When you take the time to stretch, you will notice that you become a more productive and healthier you.

Take breaks

Taking breaks throughout the day is not a distraction and it doesn't make you a lazy employee.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian considers breaks as,

refocusing your attention on something else to restore your brain.

We have all been in situations where we have been working on a problem and there doesn't seem to be a solution yet. If you keep attacking the problem without breaks then you are not giving your brain the time it needs to restore.

There have been plenty of times in my work, where I will walk away from a challenge for a little bit and be able to rest and come back with a solution.

Breaks are healthy and allow you to be more productive at work.

PLEASE TAKE BREAKS.

Breathe

If you are under a lot of stress at work, take a moment and just breathe.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian says,

if you are paying attention to your breath, you are not attending to the growing list of tasks not being completed.

It is easy for a lot of people to always focus on the laundry list of things to do at their job. Sometimes it feels like there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all of the tasks.

Taking a moment to focus on your breath will bring down your stress and anxiety levels. This will lead to a healthier more productive work day.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian advises you to

take a couple of deep breaths and observe the inhale and exhale. Let's get the oxygen redirected from your muscles back into your brain.

This is a simple task that you can do throughout your work day. But you have to remember to do it.

If you need to set reminders on your phone or computer, then do it.

Remember that your health is important and you want to take the steps to better it.

I would highly advise you to watch the entire 19 minute tech talk given by Dr. Jennifer Akullian on the freeCodeCamp Tech Talks YouTube channel.

If you enjoyed that video, then please subscribe to the channel for more high quality tech content.

Colby Fayock is an experienced front end developer and prolific freeCodeCamp contributor. He has been teaching others to code for many years.

Colby recently gave a remote talk about how to level up your web development skills at the Byteconf React 2020 conference. And we've collaborated with Byteconf to publish Colby's talk.

In his talk, Colby emphasizes that developers need to understand the fundamentals – or this ignorance will forever hold them back from achieving their projects' potential.

For example, without some basic knowledge of HTML, you might inadvertently exclude people from using your website due to poor accessibility.

And if you lack a full understanding of CSS, you might opt to use unnecessary libraries that can add to the weight of your website, and slow down your page load speeds.

In Colby's Mario Bros.-themed talk, he covers a lot of the HTML and CSS fundamentals that all web developers need to know.

He also discusses some basic HTML and CSS strategies that you can immediately use for better accessibility, simpler code, and improved SEO.

Even if you think you have the fundamentals down, it can't hurt to get a refresher and check for gaps in your knowledge.

You can watch the full talk on the freeCodeCamp Talks YouTube channel (22-minute watch). And while you're there, hit the 'Subscribe' button so you don't miss any of the great talks we post there.

And in Case You didn't Know About freeCodeCamp's Talks Channel...

There are hundreds of coding-related conferences around the world every year. And you can often hear insights about important projects through tech talks – straight from their founders and maintainers.

Our nonprofit recently launched a second YouTube channel focused on technical talks from conferences around the world. It has become one of the best places to find full-length tech talks on the web. And we publish new talks by developers Monday through Friday.

Our nonprofit has partnered with PyCon and dozens of other tech conferences to bring you awesome tech talks for free – right from the convenience of your phone or laptop.

You can incorporate these talks into your daily routine. Or you can just Voltron them all together into your own mini tech conference, and binge-watch them over a weekend.

What are these Tech Talks like? And what topics do they focus on?

Most of these are about 30 minutes long. Here are some of the topics we've published on:

• Functional Programming
• Penetration Testing
• Front End Development
• Python Libraries
• Web Assembly
• Robotics
• And a whole lot more.

Sounds rad. Where can I subscribe to freeCodeCamp Talks?

You can subscribe to this channel for free.

Also be sure to click the little “bell” to turn on notifications. YouTube will let you know when we post new videos.

Again, we plan to continue publishing new talks Monday through Friday each week. We already have 35 talks live, and we hope to eventually have thousands of talks.

Imagine a virtual Library of Alexandria overflowing with developer wisdom goodness. That's what we're aiming for.

If you yourself have given a tech talk at an event and would like for us to publish it and publicize it to the global freeCodeCamp community, be sure to email Beau Carnes, who runs the Talks channel. He may be able to feature it.

What about the original freeCodeCamp YouTube channel?

It’s still going strong!

We are publishing several videos each week there, including lots of full-length programming courses. You can subscribe to it for free here. (Again, be sure to ring the bell so YouTube will notify you when we publish new courses.)

Happy coding.

I personally like to fire up a tech talk and sit back while an expert explains a new computer science concept to me.

There are hundreds of coding-related conferences around the world every year. And you can often hear insights about important projects through tech talks – straight from their founders and maintainers.

An image from a freeCodeCamp tech talk video by Daniel Stenberg, Swedish developer and creator of the popular curl Linux library

The freeCodeCamp Talks YouTube Channel

The best place to find full-length tech talks is the freeCodeCamp Talks channel. We publish new talks by developers Monday through Friday.

Our nonprofit has partnered with PyCon and dozens of other tech conferences around the world to bring you awesome tech talks for free – right from the convenience of your phone or laptop.

You can work these talks into your daily routine. Or you can just Voltron them all together into your own mini tech conference, and binge-watch them over a weekend.

An image from Nina Zakharenko's PyCon talk about pdb and other Python debugging tools and techniques

What are these Tech Talks like? And what topics do they focus on?

Most of these are about 30 minutes long. Here are some of the topics we've published on:

• Functional Programming
• Penetration Testing
• Front End Development
• Python Libraries
• Web Assembly
• Robotics
• And a whole lot more.

An image from Scott Tolinksy's talk about how to build your own CSS Design System instead of just using popular CSS tools like Bootstrap and Foundation

Sounds rad. Where can I subscribe to freeCodeCamp Talks?

You can subscribe to this channel for free.

Also be sure to click the little “bell” to turn on notifications. YouTube will let you know when we post new videos.

Again, we plan to continue publishing new talks Monday through Friday each week. We already have 35 talks live, and we hope to eventually have thousands of talks.

Imagine a virtual Library of Alexandria overflowing with developer wisdom goodness. That's what we're aiming for.

If you yourself have given a tech talk at an event and would like for us to publish it and publicize it to the global freeCodeCamp community, be sure to email Beau Carnes, who runs the Talks channel. He may be able to feature it.

What about the original freeCodeCamp YouTube channel?

It’s still going strong!

We are publishing several videos each week there, including lots of full-length programming courses. You can subscribe to it for free here. (Again, be sure to ring the bell so YouTube will notify you when we publish new courses.)

Happy coding.

Conferences can be stressful even if you are not giving a talk. On the other hand, speaking can really boost your career, help you network, allow you to travel for (almost) free, and give back to others at the same time.

I’ve given over a dozen conference talks in the last few years and I want to share some of the things I’ve learned from my experience here.

Applying to Conferences

It can be tricky to get accepted at your first conference. Your best bet is to speak at local meetups, user group meetings, or nearby events first. The people who run those groups are always happy to have volunteer speakers and the audience is much more forgiving when you are starting out.

Before speaking at my first conference, I met lots of people by speaking at local events. This really helped to boost my confidence enough to start projecting my voice better and make eye contact. After a few local talks, someone recommended that I apply for a new, local conference. I got in! Then one talk led to another and here I am today.

Here are some conferences I recommend applying to:

1. Any local conference — They love to attract local speakers because it’s, A: cheaper, and B: better for local advertising and promotion. You can also usually connect with the people who run it beforehand and ask them to give you a chance as a first-time speaker.
2. NDC conferences — These are very well run conferences that are hosted all over the world. They pay for your airfare, hotel, and some events, meals, and, of course, give you a free ticket to the conference. It’s not just about the free stuff though; they attract top notch speakers and a wonderful community of people. I’ve personally been to NDC conferences in London, Sydney, and Minnesota. I plan on applying for many more in the future, so maybe I will see you at one soon :)
3. Python conferences — The Python community is known for being very open and welcoming to newcomers. Many of the conferences are low cost or free and you can sign up to give a five minute lightning talk if you just want to get your feet wet. The people at all of the Python conferences I’ve been to are so nice and will try to help you and give you feedback on what you can do better.

Making a Proposal

Once you have found a conference you want to apply at, you have to write a proposal for the talk and come up with a title. Most of the time, the requirements will be similar or the same so you can pretty much copy/paste to reuse talk proposals. Here are some general steps to making good proposals:

1. Research the topic: Usually, you can see a list of the speakers and talks from previous years on the conference website (unless it’s the first year, of course). Take note of about what people spoke about and which topics were underrepresented. Most of the speaker profiles will also link to contact information, so you can reach out to individual speakers and ask them their opinion on the conference and for advice on applying and getting accepted.
2. Make a catchy title: The title is the first — and sometimes only — thing attendees see when they are scrolling through a list of talks online or in the brochure at the event. It has to grab their attention, so conference organizers look for great titles when they are reviewing talks. Pick out some of the titles that pop out at you when you scroll through talks from previous years and keep a list of them for inspiration as you are making your proposals.
3. Create a proposal: Make a quick list of things you will cover and in what order. It’s good to write down an overview of what the talk will be about and then make notes about what you want the audience to get out of the talk. Experienced speakers have always told me to talk to the audience in the proposal and tell them how they will directly benefit from attending. From reviewing lots of talk descriptions in the past, I have found that it can also be good to start the description with a question to pique interest. Here is an example: “What if we could build apps that aren’t just functional, but also fun to use? Done right, gamification can vastly improve user experience as well as boost…” Some conferences will ask you to do an abstract as well as a description and some will ask only for a description and then truncate it if they need a shorter version. Either way, the method of writing the proposal is about the same.
4. Ask someone to review it: Several experienced speakers have helped me a lot over the years; from reviewing my talk proposals to giving me advice to helping me practice. It can never hurt to ask someone for help. The title of my last conference talk, “Game on! Gamifying your apps for fun and profit.” — and the idea for making it — came from another speaker I met years ago who has helped me with encouragement and advice for almost every talk I have given. People can seem scary, but they are usually nicer than you think.
5. Save your proposal: Many conferences manage their proposals with something like Sessionize.com or PaperCall.io so you can log back in and look at them in the future. Some conferences, however, have their own forms that you won’t have access to, so it’s best to save the title, abstract, description, tags, and any other information you enter in a separate location just in case.

Rejection

Everyone gets rejected. It happens all the time, even to experienced speakers. You never know if it was because you are a new speaker, or maybe the topic didn’t fit in with one of the tracks, or they might have had too many people applying to give similar talks. It’s not personal, you just have to keep applying and you will get in somewhere.

Planning & Preparation

Like I said before, practice the talk at local meetups first. If you have already been accepted, then you have to prepare the talk anyways — you might as well use it more than once. Meetup.com, Facebook groups, and local coding bootcamps are great places to ask if they will listen to you give your talk.

When I get accepted for a conference, I like to make a map of what I have to get done and by when I need to do it. Preparing for a talk is not easy. There is research to do, code to write, and slides to make. If you don’t plan and start working in advance, the time for the conference will arrive with you scrambling to get everything done. This makes an already stressful situation even more stressful.

Every talk will be different, but I generally find myself following similar steps to prepare. For example, I usually make a list of relevant articles and books to read right away because that takes the longest. Once I have done some research and have lots of notes, I go through them and write out a detailed outline of what I will cover in the talk. Then I decide what framework I want to use for my slides; if I can reuse styles from someone else’s template, all the better. After that, I make some placeholder slides for each section of my talk and then work to fill in the details. Note: it’s a good idea to keep the description of your talk nearby where you can see it while preparing for your talk. This will help to make sure your content doesn’t diverge from what you promised the conference and your audience.

Once I have the talk and slides almost ready, I will start practicing it. This helps me find holes and inconsistencies that I might not notice while creating individual slides and sections one at a time. If the talk is longer than 30 minutes, it can be hard to practice the whole thing many times over. In that case, I shoot for at least 3–6 complete run-throughs, depending on how well I know the topic. For long talks, it’s easy to start practicing and then have to stop and go do something else: Thus, it’s important to make sure you aren’t only practicing the beginning, but the middle and ending as well.

In addition to preparing your talk, here are a few items to remember to bring with you to the conference:

1. I like to prepare cables for my laptop and any dongles just incase the conference doesn’t have the right ones for my setup (most will, but you never know).
2. I also store a copy of my talk in the cloud or on a thumb drive just in case something happens to my computer. If you are using slides.com, google slides, or something similar, they have the ability to export as html or pdf files.
3. If you are doing any sort of live coding, you should probably have a video or slideshow backup. All sorts of things seem to happen when you are on stage and it never hurts to be extra prepared. Video backups have saved me a few times.
4. I always make sure I have business cards to give out after my talk in case there is someone I want to connect with.

Arriving at the Conference

You arrive in a new place with lots of strange people around you. What do you do? Who do you talk to?

The best thing is to arrive at least a day early and get situated. This can really help to relax your nerves and feel more confident. I like to check out the conference venue in advance and make sure I know how to get there. I was late for one of my talks once because I got lost in a new city trying to get to the conference. I felt terrible about it for the rest of the trip.

When you arrive at the conference venue, the first thing you will see is an info desk where you can check in and receive a speaker name tag or badge and whatever official swag they are giving out. If the room you are speaking in isn’t marked on your name tag, make sure to ask them so you know where it is and aren’t scrambling at the last minute.

As a speaker, you will probably have access to a few rooms that other attendees do not. Most conferences have a tech check room where you can plug in your laptop ahead of time. Make sure you ask about this at the info desk if you can’t find where it is. There will also be a speaker room for you to work on your talk and relax or chat with other speakers. This is probably the best place to go to meet people when you initially get there. It’s a relaxed environment and it’s great to start networking with other people in the speaker circuit as soon as you can.

When I started going to conferences, I would hide in my hotel room during meals if I didn’t know anyone. I don’t do that anymore. Now I make myself sit at a table with other humans and start a conversation. The other people are usually just as awkward and nervous as myself and I’ve met lots of cool people like this.

On Stage

If you are more of an introvert, it can feel very overwhelming to know you are about to go on stage and start speaking. In the past, I have even had panic attacks before giving talks. It’s just something you have to push through if you want to become a good speaker. Remember, everyone wants you to succeed, especially your audience. I like to go into the bathroom beforehand and take a few deep breaths. Then I arrive at least 10–15 minutes early to get set up in the room where I will give my talk. This has really helped in calming my nerves.

I once listened to a talk by Robert C. Martin — author of “Clean Code” — and asked him for speaking advice afterwards. He told me that I have to believe that I am the expert in the room and the audience is stuck there listening to me no matter what, so I might as well have fun with it. It was a simple thing to say, but for some reason it stuck with me and my speaking improved after that.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Everyone has good and bad speaking days. It can be a good idea to lead off the talk by saying that it’s your first conference and that you really appreciate XYZ conference for allowing you to come and speak. It’s always a good thing to start off by getting your audience to relate to you somehow, and that will probably make you feel more comfortable too.

If I have more than a few minutes left at the end of my talk, I will ask the room for questions and try to answer them in front of everyone. Otherwise, I will wrap up and tell attendees that I would love to answer their questions or talk to them afterwards.

Note: there may be times when you only have a few or even zero attendees. I’ve personally seen this happen to two very experienced speakers. Sometimes, it’s a topic that people aren’t interested in, or there is another famous speaker scheduled at the same time as you, or it was just a bad time of day (early in the morning after people went out the night before, or at the end of the day when people are worn out).

Afterwards

You’re done! Almost… Be sure to stay around for questions and discussion. If there is another talk after yours in the same room, just say you’ll be in the hallway after. It’s a great feeling to finish and then have people tell you thanks and give you compliments.

Don’t forget to thank the conference organizers for allowing you to attend and give a talk. If you don’t want to do it in person, a thank you email is great too. Tweet or write about your experience on a blog like freeCodeCamp’s.

Wrap Up

Don’t be afraid to speak at conferences. It’s a great way to improve your speaking skills, meet new people, and travel, among other benefits.

I hope to meet many of you at conferences in the future. Please let me know in the comments or on Twitter if there are good conferences that you have attended in the past. I’m always looking for new ones to attend :)

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/gwen_faraday

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxA99Yr6P_tZF9_BgtMGAWA

So you have been considering getting into the conference speaking field? Well you’re in luck, it’s a great time to jump in! Maybe you gave a talk at a local meetup and enjoyed it. Maybe you attended an event recently and started to think about ways you could contribute to the attendees. Maybe you ran across a good talk on YouTube that inspired you.

You got this! (source: Getty Images)

I have been speaking at conferences, reviewing proposals for events, and coaching new speakers for the last couple of years. I find that many people have misconceptions on the subject, like “I need tons of experience before I can speak at an event” or “speaking at events is invite only”.

But there is a growing movement in tech to make speaking more friendly to beginners and more welcoming as a whole. More and more events even have a separate application (call for proposals) process for beginners.

Picking a Topic

The process of coming up with ideas for your next proposal can be more similar to that of songwriting than something more systematic, like approaching a technical problem. Inspiration comes from many different places and in many different forms. Here are some ways that I have come up with talk ideas:

Real Footage of Me Brainstorming (Source: Giphy.com)

• I saw a talk with X format and decided to apply it to Y subject.
• While working on a project, I thought, “Wow! I wish I knew X, Y, and Z before I started!”
• A conversation with coworkers about X led me to see the potential for a talk on it.

With these approaches I start out with the idea and then find a way to make it work for the conference. For example, when I applied to speak at Pycon I knew I wanted to talk about computational randomness. So I started there and then added to the Python specific meat of the talk. You can also start with the conference in mind and brainstorm ideas from there. By using this method, my thought process was more like:

• These are the top X, Y, Z ideas people are looking at in this language/framework now.
• This conference tends to have talks in X and Y subject areas every year.
• An event is specifically requesting talks in Z field.

Personally, I have found the first approach to be more successful. Often, starting with the conference in mind can lead you to write talks that you think the conference wants, rather than writing something you are genuinely passionate about. Also, people tend to come up with similar ideas which can put you in a bigger pool of competition (i.e. writing 1 of the 100 talks about the basics of machine learning in Python vs. a unique problem you are particularly suited to solve).

Writing your Abstract

Once you have the idea, it is time to jump into representing it in the best light possible. One of the biggest misconceptions in conference submissions is that you don’t need too much effort into this step because

A. You are too important or

B. Your idea speaks for itself.

Unless you have been specifically invited to speak (at which point you can decide your own topic with some input from the organizing team), your proposal will often go through a blind review process where it has to fend for itself against the other (well-written) proposals.

And details are important! Reviewers are busy people often reading hundreds of proposals for an event. If there is not enough content there, they will not guess what you could have meant. They will mark it down and move on - regardless of your qualifications.

With the importance of this writing stage in mind, here’s a little about my process once I’ve got an idea…

Time to start writing! (Source: Giphy.com)

Write the description first

Conferences have varying requirements for a submission, but I often start with a more detailed description and outline to solidify my ideas as recommended by Alaina Kafkes in this piece. This helps me illuminate the most important stuff that I want to talk about.

Sometimes you start out writing a talk about how brown bears are best, but as you start to sketch out the timeline for what you want to discuss, you realize that you really want to talk about why polar bears are undervalued and really deserve more attention overall.

Answer the question: why should I attend this talk?

The abstract you submit is your selling point. The elevator pitch of your talk. It’s like a dating profile to potential matches. Think about the value of your talk to potential attendees, because this is how reviewers will decide whether or not to include it.

I usually write out a separate section with at least 3 explicit takeaways that I will incorporate into the abstract and often also include that in my description. One of the most common reasons talks get denied is “Can’t think of any takeaways”. As a reviewer, a common litmus test for reading a talk is “Would I have interest in this talk myself?” and if the answer is no, that can be a good reason to favor a different, more compelling proposal instead.

Think about why you are the best person to give this talk

Saron from Code Newbie gave this advice in a webinar on submitting to conferences that really stuck with me. Don’t submit a talk that should be a blog post. As someone who really loves practical takeaways, I often write talks that feel more like “5 reasons to switch to X framework”, but the best talks have a good story as well.

Looking at it from this perspective humanizes my speaking and makes my talks more like a journey than a series of tips that could be easily skimmed. You want to leave your attendees with more than what they would get from a written piece.

Have at least one person read your work

I always have at least one person review my work and I will continue doing this until the one time when they do not manage to catch something really big. These embarrassing mistakes that I somehow missed in the 50 times I read it myself have included:

• basic spelling errors
• weird auto-correct issues
• using “I” instead of “me”
• choosing a word that didn’t mean what I thought it did

This step is really important. To many reviewers, grammatical mistakes both consciously and unconsciously convey a lack of effort.

Grammar Matters (Source: Yourecards.com)

Get feedback

If the conference offers it, get feedback on proposals! Even if not explicitly stated, when emailing and asking for a second opinion I have never been turned down. This makes a world of difference. Some of the useful feedback I’ve received has included cutting irrelevant subjects, adding more detail to a particular technical explanation, and making the takeaways more obvious.

Best of luck in your journey!

Like many things in life, submitting to conferences is a bit of a numbers game, so don’t give up if you are not accepted the first time. Ask them for tips on how to improve! Hope to see you at an event soon.

Good luck! (Source: Giphycat.com)