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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.

The content in the article is good and important. That said, I don’t find it “practical” enough so… I’ll link to my own tips on preparing and giving presentations ;-)

https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-tips.html

https://jmmv.dev/2020/07/presentation-preparation.html

(These were originally Twitter threads so apologies for the abuse of emojis hehe.)

I used to dread speaking in public but have come to enjoy it, and all of the above tips have made it easier over time. I think the vast majority of them came to me from more experienced presenters (and even a class I took in college about public speaking).

As others have mentioned in the discussion below, keeping it fun and providing the motivation for the talk are important. And my pet peeve is to remind people that “your slides are not the presentation: what you say is”.

Let me also share the English version of my own list of tips, tricks, checks, etc. I’ve been compiling it over the past 15 years while teaching, doing consulting, presenting results to clients, and so on. Every now and then, I find it useful to read it again to be clear on how to prepare presentations.

https://github.com/ciberado/100-trucos-para-hacer-mejores-pr...

I will be grateful if you help me to enrich it by opening Issues or creating PRs.

This title reminds me of Patrick Winston's "How to Speak" lecture at MIT.

It's the best of its kind that I've seen. An hour long and I've watched it several times. Even my highschooler was impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY

EDIT: no way, it was just posted yesterday. Glad it got the attention.

I highly recommend Toastmasters. Best place to practice giving a speech in front of a group of people that you don't know. They have chapters all around the world.

https://www.toastmasters.org/

Listing out the categories of value proposition is useful when considering what to include in a talk, but in my experience, the entertainment part is just as crucial to getting people’s attention. I’d be interested in seeing how people approach entertainment in a technical context and how it can be used to solidify a talk’s main ideas.

> Every talk must begin with its motivation

Must is a strong word. Surely there exist good presentations that begin with something else.

The most helpful advice I’ve heard is not to aim for perfection. When you focus too much on structure and technique, the talk often feels stiff. What really connects with people is speaking about something you truly care about. The first time I gave a talk, I memorized the entire script and completely blanked on stage. Later, I spoke from the heart instead and it worked much better. Instead of trying to impress the audience, it might be more important to ask yourself why this matters to you.

I found this article really helpful, and a lot of the advice made me nod along. The point about “making sure your audience knows what to take away” is something I realize many people, including myself, often overlook. I used to think preparing slides was enough, but now I see that giving a talk is more like having a conversation—you want people to feel comfortable and engaged. I also like the reminder to add a bit of humor and warmth. Next time I get the chance to speak, I’d really like to put this into practice.

Not bad, but I find this better: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/cdnstudents/...

1. Picture the problem

2. Promise the potential

3. Prove the performance

4. Push the purchase

Although focused on "pitches," all talks/presentations are "selling" an idea. (Including that article itself!)

On Entertainment: Go find your favorite YouTube educator and imitate them. For me, that's https://www.youtube.com/@WorkshopCompanion . I will never be as good at delivery as him, but I aspire to teach so much, so clearly, in such a short time, without making you board.

I believe giving a talk in a boring manner never helps; it should be influenced by humor, like learning from comedians and how they practice public speaking.

reminds me of "How to Speak"

https://youtu.be/Unzc731iCUY

Having gone to many international academic conferences, I learned to distinguish the quality of the talk from the quality of the content.

I have seen good speakers with fluff content and terrible speakers with useful content. At this point, as long as the quality of the content shows and is discernable, I don't mind bad but sincere speakers. I even kind of like it...

Start your talk by telling a little story about yourself and bridge it to your topic. In many of the talks I've listened to - I've felt more connected instantly to the speaker than any other technique, including comedy.

Step 1. Have something of non-trivial value to others

Step 2. Doesn't matter

This applies not only to giving a good talk but living a good life. Unless you were born beautiful - step 1 takes 10-20 years of conscious effort to develop. Everything else is marketing/advertising, otherwise known as lies (99% of what's on HN, for example)

TL;DR: A good conference talk delivers value by informing (what you did and why it matters), educating (portable insights), and entertaining (keeping attention) all while aligning with the community’s shared values.