Conference Submissions and Presentations

Be more effective in your conference submissions and presentations with these 10 quick tips.

(A screencast of this session is available at http://youtu.be/fJz4JJIchaY)

Have you eyed that latest cool conference, thinking, "I'd sure like to go there. Darn, I'd even like to present there! But what would I talk about? How would I write the proposal? How would I deliver the talk with excellence?"

Those are all questions that both I and dozens of my frequently-presenting colleagues and friends have faced over the years. I've taken careful notes over the years, tried many of the ideas, recorded which ones worked and which ones didn't, wrote a book on the topic, and now, have a passion for helping others succeed in this space.

Being a teacher, even for a 30 minute slot at a conference, is a noble undertaking and extremely rewarding. I hope to inspire and offer a few bits of wisdom gained through experience in these 45 minutes together.

"Of all the hard jobs around, one of the hardest is being a good teacher." – Maggie Gallagher

Transcript

1. Conference Submissions and Presentations with 10 quick tips made more effective @matthewmccull
2. Matthew McCullough @matthewmccull
4. http://presentationpatterns.com
6. ❶  Find your motivation
7. Want to do it.
9. Help others do better.
10. • Teach a skill that you know well and others are weak at. • Change opinions about something that is viewed as hot (or not). • Share a story of how something worked out well. • Recount how a popular process didn't work for your team. • Tell how you learned a hard lesson as a team. • Do a technical deep dive and make it approachable to newcomers.
11. ❷  Investigate your audience
14. Ask the conference organizer.
15. Query past attendees.
16. Adjust for maximum audience impact.
17. • What is the technical level of the audience? Basic? Advanced? • What languages do the audience members primarily program in? • What kind of social diversity can I expect of the audience? • What age range might I expect? • What educational background will audience members typically have? • What languages will the audience possibly know?
18. ❸  Craft a story
19. Freytag can help.
20. 1 Exposition 2 Rising action 3 Complication 4 Climax 5 Falling action 6 Resolution 7 Denouement Exposition Clim ax Denouement
21. ❹  Write the proposal
22. Think about the weight of your words.
23. Brief, but impactful.
24. Lengths: •Title •Abstract •Description
25. Get inspiration from other proposals. http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/grid/public
26. ❺  Market your talk
28. Advertise your talk everywhere you possibly can.
30. ❻  Design the talk
31. Sketch your ideas
32. Linearize at the last possible moment.
33. ❼  Build the talk
34. You are the talk.
35. Slides are merely a support.
36. Color is easy with a little help.
37. http://kuler.adobe.com
38. Design is easy, given examples.
39. http://speakerdeck.com
40. ❼  Practice the talk
41. Less than 10% practice their talk.
43. ❽  Seed satisfaction
44. Place friends in the front row.
45. The front row controls the room.
46. ❾  Just talk
47. No stupid underwear analogies.
48. The audience members are your friends.
50. ❿  Feedback
51. Provide a feedback channel.
52. @matthewmccull
53. Vent and direct the steam.
54. Freytag?
56. just two more things...
58. http://oscon.com Submit at:
59. @matthewmccull