Chamber 🏰 of Tech Secrets #39
The secrets of public speaking
The Chamber 🏰 of Tech Secrets is open. This week I want to share some reflections on public speaking. I find it pretty natural and low-stress today, but that has not always been the case.
Public Speaking Woes
When I was in elementary school, I was extremely shy. My mom would introduce me to other adults and I would hide behind her. I wouldn’t speak much to most people, just my close friends and family. I dreaded talking in front of the class through school. I was often shy and socially awkward.
As I grew up and became more confident, these patterns faded some, but I remained aware of and nervous about the thoughts and expectations of others. Particularly dreaded was “public speaking”, generally performed in the context of oral reports in school. Anticipating these events filled me with a strange sense of dread—the stomach turning kind (iykyk). I tried to focus on getting everything right, not losing my train of thought, and not getting a “frog in my throat” that would interrupt my words. I experienced all of these “failures”, and more. I always survived, but emerged relieved and sweaty at the end, wondering what everyone else thought of me. This was even true in the earlier days of my working career in meetings and departmental presentations.
Over the past 8 years, I have done more public speaking engagements than I can count, most of which are technical or leadership oriented. People tell me that I do a great job, which always strikes me as humorous given the above history. If I can change…
Secrets of successful conference presentations
Here are a few things I think you should consider when doing public speaking engagements, particularly technical ones.
Make no assumptions about your audience: One thing I have observed is that a lot of people assume that others have the same context they do. This is wrong. People have come to your talk interested to learn, but if you assume too much and don’t create a shared context, you’ll notice them shift their attention to their phones. So how do you create that shared context?
Most of my talks have been about technology at Chick-fil-A… so I like to start by helping people understand our business and our challenges, and then explain why we wanted a technical solution like the one I am presenting. Hopefully, this means that the audience is clear on the WHY so we can turn our attention together to WHAT and HOW.
Start with a story: I used to start my presentations with an agenda and by introducing myself. The best advice I ever read about public presentations was to NEVER do that. It’s boring. And its a presenter-centric tactic. It puts you in a mindset of saying “I am the presenter. Here is who I am. Here is what I am going to teach you”. It is far better to start with a story that engages the audience and gets them thinking about how they might address the problems you experienced as they come on the journey with you. Yes — this is true even for the most technical of topics. The story can be short… but it is your chance to extend a hand to the audience and invite them to think about this problem with you, which is far more fun and engaging than the alternative.
Be the master of your content: This is the most obvious thing ever, but make sure you are the master of your content. If you know your topic in and out, there is really nothing that can surprise you or go wrong during your talk. You might not nail every point you intended, but nobody notices because they never saw your notes.
Present the content in the best way you possibly can and don’t worry about the expectations of the audience: After a lot of talk about connecting with the audience, remember that you are not presenting to impress anyone. The audience is not constantly judging your presentation, your delivery, how you look, how pretty your slides are. Think about your own experience. When you attend a talk, you are trying to learn something. If you are presenting and you make a mistake, nobody cares other than you.
It. Is. Ok.
Most people don’t remember most talks they listened to anyway. They will remember things they did that may have been a result of the talk, whether they can attribute it back or not. Don’t waste time trying to be flashy and impressive. Interesting may draw people in, but sharing experiences is what will make your talk great.
Be available: People often follow up after talks, whether in-person or on LinkedIn. Be as available as you can. A lot of the value creation for others, and you, will come from the relationships and conversations that come out of your presentation.
Use lots of slides: If you are nervous about losing your train of thought, use lots of slides. This approach works great for me. Some people do amazing presentations with no slides or just a few slides. I like to use lots of slides, but not many words. There are a few reasons for this approach…
When I have a lot of slides, the flow of the presentation takes care of itself. If I happen to lose my train of thought (which has happened), the slides are there to keep me moving down the right path. This takes away a lot of anxiety about getting lost or missing key points.
People like to engage many senses at once — I try and keep my slides to mostly pictures or diagrams so that they support what is being said, but don’t say what is being said. This gets the eyes and ears engaged and can stir an internal dialogue in the listener where they start to think about what is being said as well.
Here is an example: The purpose of this slide is to explain our GitOps architecture for container deployments to thousands of edge locations. Without some narration, you may have some ideas of what we do… but its not entirely clear. You need to listen to what I am saying. Without the picture, this becomes a pretty complicated topic to explain.
If there is a key phrase you need to really nail, put the text on the slide. You can read it and remember it, and the audience will read it and perhaps remember it. One that I use regularly in the context of edge computing is “we should run out workloads as close to the user as necessary, but no closer”.
Demos: Are live demos useful? Reflecting on my live demos in the past, I think my motivation was to validate myself, to make people think what I did was cool, and to “wow” the audience. If that is your reason for a live demo, just skip it. The presentation is for the audience to learn, not for self-validation. If your demo is able to help people get the point of your talk or truly learn to do something themselves, have at it.
Bring a friend: Nervous? Don’t feel like you have mastery over certain components of the topic? Bring a friend. You can always co-present. Don’t transition back and forth too much, but two-presenter events can be really great since they bring two different ways of thinking and communicating to the content. If you are nervous that you will lose your train of thought or make a mistake, you have a backstop up there with you.
Anatomy of a great presentation
What makes a great talk? Reflecting on years of attending conferences presentations, I think the best talks have the following elements:
They tell and story and invite the listener to think along with them about the problem and how it might be solved.
They are clearly rooted in the experiences of the speaker (rich with stories).
They are honest and transparent — things that go poorly often make better talks than things that went perfectly.
They leave time for questions, which can often be the best part of a presentation since its a chance to really engage with the audience. “No questions” is usually a sign of a talk that could have gone better.
They are filled with humility — this is what we did and why and it may not work for everyone, but here’s why it made sense for us.
They don’t share too much and are actionable — we don’t need to know everything you’ve ever thought about. We just need something we can take away and act on.
If you are nervous about presenting publicly, I’d urge you to take some steps to overcome that fear. One of the best ways to become an active participant in the tech community is to contribute directly. Don’t be shy. Give it a try. 😀
This is a golden formula.
Begin with a story// create shared context// master your content.
I love the "many slides" approach, as an audience member it definitely keeps senses firing and engaged... movies and youtube videos seem to switch camera angles constantly, so there is something there with regards to keeping audience attention.