I once gave a short talk at Harvard. Nearly didn't because I was so intimidated by the crowd. Got through it, hardly able to read the room because of my internal dialogue of focusing on the content, and also convinced I was a fraud. Then I realized I went over my time limit by almost 50%. When it was over, my emotions were such a mess I logically thought I should try to cry or scream to let off the overwhelming negative energy I had built up. It was one unreal bucket of feelings after another. As I collected my clip board and bag, I walked to the side of the hall where I was sure I had seen an exit, someone dodged in front of me and put their hand out and introduced themselves and started asking questions about the talk. Took her card and suddenly there was another. It wasn't until maybe the fourth person when I realized there was a line of at least twenty people. Yeah, stop and say hi. Even with critical questions, complaints. Making a connection with other people is one of the most important things we can do.
Another very useful trick I learned for handling criticism, especially when you're standing nervously on stage and the critic is being unfriendly, unreasonable, and unlikely to change their mind about anything:
If you don't feel you can give a quick response in a way that will bring them to your side right away, instead of arguing simply keep a notepad handy and (visibly) take a quick note about what they said and thank them. Most folks that raise unreasonable criticisms at talks just want to be heard, and in my experience they may even suddenly become very friendly to you for visibly acknowledging their comments, opening the door for a productive and constructive conversation.
It seems every question is great on the presentations I'm listening to, which is practically impossible. It's most likely a bell-shaped curve on the greatness scale. We should be hearing "that's a bad question" every now and then.
I have given lots of talks and if i have a hostile critic i would want that over people saying great talk or even indifference. I learn more from critics than anything else and it definitely gives me evidence that people were actually understanding my talk or even where they misunderstood me.
Yup. I take notes in front of the camera just to let the person know that I'm hearing them, even if I can't answer them in that moment. I also let them know about when I'll be able to get back to them. Goes a long way.
On the flip of this. For those getting started at their first speaking things, don't freak out when you look over the audience and feel like zero people are registering that you are even using real words :) . I've been on stage a lot: speaking, improv, plays, stuff. And there are countless times you'll actually be able to make some eye contact with the audiecnce if there aren't too bright of a stage light, and you will just see stone cold expressions staring back at you. And you will wonder if words are still coming out of your mouth. :) It happens. The human connection you get with a one on one encounter that your body kind of expects when you talk. Them nodding, or any expression whatsoever often goes completely absent in a speakers setting.
That's why "open with a joke" is so useful. It's not really for them! It's for you!. If you can hear a laugh from your audience, YOU start to chill out. Your body is like "ah. the mic is actually on, and I'm not having a stroke".
Another useful tip, if the scenario allows, try to hang out by the front row before your talk and chat someone up. That's who you want to then make eye contact with often during your talk. Their expression will be or at least seem to be warmer to you. And you'll feel some more calm looking at them than the random heads everywhere else.
I used to have a colleague that would always nod to things in meetings, and make a humming/agreeing ("mhm") sound once in a while. I used to find it a bit weird, he probably didn't even notice it himself. But then I held a presentation once with him in the room, and started to love that little quirk of his. Could always just find him in the crowd and feel some encouragement.
As for telling speakers you liked their talks, another higher up in the company used to send me a DM and thank/praise me. My guess is he did it for everyone, but still it felt very validating as a junior, both to be seen and also encouraged. It's a bit like with kids, tell them they're good at something (even if not), and they'll try to be, heh.
But I've tried to take that with me, and send DMs to people, where it maybe normally wouldn't feel natural for me. But after a while it does. And it can be even for small things, like "I like how well prepared you were for that meeting, any questions they had you could answer". You'll bet that person is well prepared the next time we have a meeting as well.
I have a huge problem with WFH speaking that I otherwise don't in a regular setting - I work at a fully remote, cameras off company and it is very difficult for me to talk in a meeting for longer than a minute without getting that feeling. Just me, in my room, talking to myself. I have no idea if anyone is listening or what they are thinking.
The audience is usually my internal team but I've never once seen their faces in the years I've worked at the company which definitely makes it more unnatural. It's the strangest feeling and I still haven't gotten used to it, but I think you just nailed why I feel like that!
I don't know. I dislike camera asymmetry (mine on, others off) but when everyone's is off it's just like the phone conference calls of olden days. I like it because I can pace around, stand up, stare at the ceiling to allow me to concentrate.
Another trick is to arrive early and try to talk to as many people before hand as possible. They’re your allies during the talk—they’ll stick around and root for the person they met.
Tell the speakers why you liked their talks! And ask them about things you didn't understand.
Same with bands. "Loved your set" is one thing, "loved your set" because "it reminded me of…"/"made me feel…" is another.
The other week I said to a singer/songwriter that I had enjoyed her full band set the day before and that her guitarist had a really surprisingly dirty guitar sound, and she said "I know! and from such a clean-looking gentleman! I'll tell him that, he'll love it". We then chatted about how her music was (for philosophical reasons) not "guitar solo" territory but how inventive and supportive his playing was in that context and I said how well I thought she'd woven it all together.
The energy you bring to putting yourself in front of a crowd really in any context, whether professional or entertainment, formal/informal, planned/improvised, you take in part from the feedback from previous attempts; it's difficult to do it otherwise.
Wrote to a composer a few years ago and pianist recently with pretty focused things I wanted to compliment, and they both clearly appreciated it because they sent very long, considerate responses (longer than what I had sent initially!)
I have corresponded at length with composers who seemed to appreciate the interest. On the other hand, I know a composer (not even that famous, just successful enough) who has his copyist answer all correspondence with stock replies, since fans don't do anything for him and just annoy him; they aren't part of the ecosystem of commissioning works that is how he gets paid.
John Paul Hayward and Trevor Alan Gomes are fantastic musicians and have done well for themselves it seems but I highly doubt they have staff for that!
Some years ago I was trying to track down a comedy TV series I watched when I was a student, along with most other students at the time, which wasn't big enough to have been later issued on DVD. I emailed the agent of the actor/producer who starred in it and he gave me his mobile number and told me to give him a call. We talked for quite awhile about the history of the series and the fun they had making it, and he said if I couldn't find a copy anywhere (I eventually found it in a film archive) I could come round to his place and search through his garage because he had video tapes of it in there somewhere. He was really cool about the whole thing, and seemed happy that his work was still remembered 30-odd years later.
For awhile I did the public speaking circuit - my focus was on infrastructure engineering, governance and supportability.
So - I would pepper my talks with real-life scenarios and anecdotes - and alot of humour - because my audiences where in the "same trenches" as me.
Then, I gave a talk to an audience of ALL corporate developers (Windows world, so .NET) - it was such a weird vibe, I have never had such a stony-faced, unresponsive crowd of attendees. (But their written feedback/reviews were great, so...)
(It also didn't start well, because the venue hosts attempted to eject an attendee because of the way he was dressed (motorcycle leathers, jeans - honestly nothing offensive) - and "didn't look like he was supposed to be there" - I intervened - it turned out that he was a tech user-group leader in the local community, and was just "different/quirky".)
> the venue hosts attempted to eject an attendee because of the way he was dressed (motorcycle leathers, jeans - honestly nothing offensive) - and "didn't look like he was supposed to be there"
How were they to know he belonged at the infrastructure engineering governance talk when the guy wasn't even wearing a fursuit?
Lack of response to anecdotes and humor, which I use a lot too, is really off-putting. You have no idea whether they've all just switched off / they're only there because they have to be, or whether they're actually listening. It's particularly bad in some cultures like Japan where the attendees are often there as a reward and so use the time to catch up on news, sleep, or just generally not listen, so you can get zero audience reaction, and that's before getting into the translation problems with jokes and metaphors, or the very different sentence structure where you have to say a complete sentence, then pause and wait for the translator to rearrange the words into the Japanese order, then say them, and then you can start the next sentence. Another bad one is where the stage is lit but the audience isn't and/or is well below the level of the stage so you're just talking into a blank void if there's no audience reaction.
Lack of response and direct human interaction is why I never pivoted to doing "online" sessions, podcasting or even online-first training sessions.
As well - the fact that technical writing (in publishing at least) has been homogenized and steered-clear of the use of humour, metaphors, idioms and analogies has also moved me away from writing/technical editing - I miss the days of "quirky" books - things like Jeff Duntemman's "Delphi Programming Explorer", which IIRC was told as a hardboiled detective mystery. Or "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford. Sure - I understand the driving commercial underlying reasons for this: profit + globalization - but I still miss those. Of course, with technical blogs available, there are still plenty of unique voices out there.
I am absolutely terrified of public speaking, and IMO not very good at it. I never apply to give talks, but I always seem to get invited to give talks or be on panels or podcasts a few times a year anyway.
Every time it is days of anxiety trying to figure out how I am going to communicate the security ideas I want people to adopt in a way that may land this time, because I am convinced it could reduce a lot of harm if I am successful.
I never say no though because for whatever reason someone respected my work enough to invite me, and maybe this time I can convince even one org to make the changes to their security posture that are going to prevent the data or assets of the users that trusted them from being stolen.
After each event is days of kicking myself for all the things I should not have said, or should have said but failed to. All the ways I could have been more effective.
When zero people have any questions or feedback after, my brain tells me in a loop that nothing I said landed, and it is devastating. Did I get in a plane and go through so much effort only to confuse people and scare them further away from doing things that actually are pretty easy?
One time after a security panel at a big conference a single person came up to me after who told me what they agreed with, what they want to learn more about, and why. That person is my co-founder now.
Talk to speakers if you connected with what they said or reach out to them after. You may be the source of validation they need to keep trying.
People always will talk to you about anything they know a lot about.
You can approach any human, of any standing, anywhere on Earth, and if you ask a question that hits them right in their knowledge center, especially if it is something they don't commonly get to talk about, they will positively engage with you.
I know speaking with absolutes on the internet is a borderline crime, but this is so reliable I think it warrants it.
I know you mentioned it, but I'm going to mention it anyway...
One notable exception to this is the person's work. Which I, personally, am not super inclined to talk about with people even though it comprises the vast majority of my knowledgebase. Maybe I'm projecting, but my guess is that Joe Schmoe isn't going to want to talk about his profession after coming home exhausted. That is, unless he's truly found his calling.
Very true! It’s a funny dynamic where audience members are sometimes intimidated to approach speakers, while the speaker themselves really wishes people would approach them (and is worried about what it means if nobody does).
Absolutely this. One of the main reasons to give a presentation at a conference is that it means you can talk to people about it afterwards. "Hey, I liked your talk" is a freebie ice-breaker for anyone else, so it's much easier for them to strike up a conversation with you.
Beyond speakers, this is great advice for anyone whose public work you appreciate that isn't a major celebrity. I've sent questions and compliments to creators of all kinds of work I enjoy and more often than not gotten a genuinely thoughtful and appreciative response back. It could be a small website creator, a researcher in a field outside my own, an author, or an open source project maintainer.
My sense is that not many people do this and anyone who is not mega-famous rarely hears from strangers who like their work.
I'm giving my first conference talk in a few weeks.
I'm hoping it makes people want to talk to me so I don't end up sitting alone during breaks! I have not managed to experience the mythical hallway track that everyone raves about...
(Another speaker said they're bringing stickers to bribe people - shit why didn't I think of that)
One other trick you can do: mention one or two well-chosen things in your talk that are interesting and related to your topic, but that you can't go into further detail on (for lack of time). Say you'd be happy to discuss them after the talk with anyone who's interested!
This way, anyone who wants to talk to you has a freebie question they can ask (and that you have interesting thoughts on), which may lead to further conversations.
As a bonus, pointing out 1-2 connections like this usually improves your talk for everyone, by adding context.
Yes, I found that a lot of people are hesitant to ask questions when there are many people in the room (tbh sometimes even I feel like my questions may sound stupid when I'm the attendee). So I always hang around in the room/hallway so people can come and talk to me.
As someone noted, I always have my contact information (e.g., a LinkedIn profile) in my slide so people can reach out to me after the event and I actually had good conversations with people after conferences. Not only do I get feedback/questions on my presentation, but I get to expand my network.
I love taking my 45 minute talks and recycling them into a smaller time format. People feel like they're getting a lot of information when you have to gloss over portions of it or skip entire sections.
I've given one talk of mine in about 5 different venues, and the 30 minute version (which was EXTREMELY truncated) got some of the best feedback, despite me feeling like I didn't cover anything.
Pro tip: Every other slide (ish) is a joke referencing / setting up the next slide. Gives you a beat to change gears, keeps the audience really engaged, and lightens the mood. Also ensures you’re breaking things up into bite-sized pieces.
I gave a talk with a section on curried functions and interspersed the content slides with pictures of Tim Curry, for example.
Jokes can be tricky in talks, as they rely on shared cultural context. If you know your audience well and know what will land with them it's great, if you don't then care is needed.
I generally advise people to put some jokes in if they like but don't make the talk rely on people getting the jokes.
but don't make the talk rely on people getting the jokes
Adding to this, don't automatically include <wait for laughter> in your joke delivery. Make the joke - if it lands and the audience is laughing, you can pause until it dies down. If the joke doesn't land, you just move on and everyone will forget about it.
In case it's useful, I did a talk about giving talks earlier this year which covered various things I've encountered/learned over the talks I've done and seen
https://tagt.mccune.org.uk/ - has sections and links to specific parts of the video, so you don't have to watch the whole thing to get to a bit that seems interesting :)
Yay! Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do great. Normally on my last slide I include the links to my website and social media and then I encourage people to come chat with me. I also mention if I am staying around for drinks etc
I end up having the chance to speak on my current research a couple of times a year.
Occasionally I'll realize that the audience is some of the most well known names in my field and panic too much to do a good job. Having people ask to talk about my work afterwards always helps a lot with the subsequent spiraling thoughts. To be fair, I'd be happy even with criticism; that gives me something specific to improve rather than trying to figure it out on my own.
Been getting better at handling it as I gain more experience, but even then, being asked questions one-on-one really helps with knowing that the audience was genuinely paying attention.
Unfortunately I'm not the best at coming up with questions on the spot, I need time to digest the material. I admire people that can sit through a broad range of presentations and quickly have insightful questions for each one.
Watch your next demo day meeting... Some people will get tons of reacts, comments; some people get nothing. At least in person you get the obligatory smattering of claps after the talk. When there's nothing at all, it feels like you did something wrong.
Someone echoed a similar sentiment but in general I think people get great satisfaction and pride out of being told their work is good. When I worked in the food service industry nothing made me happier than hearing someone genuinely enjoyed the meal. It’s left such a lasting impression that anytime I enjoy a coffee, meal, etc I try to look the person in the eyes an earnestly say “hey this was really good.” If you don’t do this a lot you may be surprised to see just how happy this makes the person working. It doesn’t matter if they made the food or served it or even just worked the register.
I haven't been to big talks. Only more like local engineer meetups.
A few times, I approached speakers for saying I liked it but turned down, as they had to talk to people from bigger companies, and few even expressed unpleasantness to me.
Those are rare cases, so I still give props to speakers whenever I can.
My lesson was that there are shitty speakers for sure, but don't let it stop you from continuing to appreciate speakers.
I realized recently, of the thousands of blog posts I've read, videos I've watched, books I've read, I only reached out to the creators a handful of times.
And my friends are often surprised by me reaching out to strangers, so I seem to be unusually extroverted in this regard.
Which implies that there could be thousands of people out there whose lives I've affected (for better or worse!), and I'll never know. If only a fraction of a percent of them get back to me. Then that's just how it works.
I've heard that a huge percentage of people on the Internet are lurkers and that those posting and commenting are in the minority. Not sure if that's still true in the age of smartphones. I'll often leave comments on YT vids and such if they were interesting or helpful, but I would say a lot of people I know probably wouldn't do the same. I would probably not do the equivalent at an in-person talk, so that's an interesting contrast to think about.
While there are exceptions, there's usually very little you'd get from in-person talks. And quite often, the people who are giving these talks are serial presenters - as a lifestyle, or sometimes career building.
But then like I said, there are exceptions. Especially when it's about something interesting being demoed for the first time, or a deeply technical conversation. Those are not the norm.
I think the missing condition here is "if you liked the talk". Not everyone likes or engages with the same material; I know folks who will effectively check out as soon as the conversation gets too techie, but they will happily sit through hours of (vacuous, to me) "life hacks" and pop-psychology talks.
I do agree that there are people for whom "the speaker circuit" is a job, and you can kinda smell it right from the presentation. But I think their numbers often depend on the type of event.
I can start by saying thank you! The name looked familiar. I remember stumbling upon her css presentation[0] And I was surprised to see one of my articles as a resource.
Take a picture of the Speaker while they talk. So many times they forget to get pictures. Then send it to them on LinkedIn and you will forever be in their messages feed as that "nice person who took my picture."
Questions are great, the more common 'nice talk' barely makes anything. Also sometimes it feels over-engineered trying to make a smart or memorable comment.
Disclaimer: Ana is a very dear friend of mine and may well be the Best Person™. Ana, if you’re reading this, the live-coded karaoke talk you gave at State of the Browser was the best I’d seen in years.
I’ve given talks at meetups and it’s incredibly frustrating when you get zero feedback from people attending. If you liked it or didn’t, give me something!
One time I was interacting with a stranger (so long ago, I dont remember who. Possibly just a store clerk). At the end of the interaction they looked me in the eye and said 'Have a great day'. It took me off guard, but made me feel really good in a way I couldnt put my finger on. I now say the same thing to everybody I meet in my day, in the hope I can bring somebody else that same feeling and genuinely make them have a good day.
Question, where do you live? In America, and especially on the Pacific Coast 'Have a great day' is a phatic expression [1]. It is a common parting phrase and has lost any special significance that it might have once had within a conversation.
If I lived in a place where this was a phatic expression, I doubt it would have made much of an impression on me as I would have heard it all the time.
I live in the UK where parting phatic expressions such as 'cheers', 'see you later', and 'take care' are common. But 'Have a good/great day' definitely is not.
I once gave a short talk at Harvard. Nearly didn't because I was so intimidated by the crowd. Got through it, hardly able to read the room because of my internal dialogue of focusing on the content, and also convinced I was a fraud. Then I realized I went over my time limit by almost 50%. When it was over, my emotions were such a mess I logically thought I should try to cry or scream to let off the overwhelming negative energy I had built up. It was one unreal bucket of feelings after another. As I collected my clip board and bag, I walked to the side of the hall where I was sure I had seen an exit, someone dodged in front of me and put their hand out and introduced themselves and started asking questions about the talk. Took her card and suddenly there was another. It wasn't until maybe the fourth person when I realized there was a line of at least twenty people. Yeah, stop and say hi. Even with critical questions, complaints. Making a connection with other people is one of the most important things we can do.
Another very useful trick I learned for handling criticism, especially when you're standing nervously on stage and the critic is being unfriendly, unreasonable, and unlikely to change their mind about anything:
If you don't feel you can give a quick response in a way that will bring them to your side right away, instead of arguing simply keep a notepad handy and (visibly) take a quick note about what they said and thank them. Most folks that raise unreasonable criticisms at talks just want to be heard, and in my experience they may even suddenly become very friendly to you for visibly acknowledging their comments, opening the door for a productive and constructive conversation.
Everyone in the audience will recognise when someone is being a dick and will be praying for them to stop grandstanding.
“Great questions/point - would be great to pick it up with you later. Any other questions?”
It seems every question is great on the presentations I'm listening to, which is practically impossible. It's most likely a bell-shaped curve on the greatness scale. We should be hearing "that's a bad question" every now and then.
I heard a speaker once say "that's a [obvious pause] question" and the audience giggled because it was obviously a really poorly thought out question.
I've used "please phrase your question in the form of a question" when the person in the audience is using it as a platform to deliver a long speech.
Ahh I see you've never been to a physics conference!
I have given lots of talks and if i have a hostile critic i would want that over people saying great talk or even indifference. I learn more from critics than anything else and it definitely gives me evidence that people were actually understanding my talk or even where they misunderstood me.
I _really_ like this advice, I will be filing it away for future use. Thankyou for your suggestion :P
In my experience this goes for more than just talks - can be helpful at events and regular meetings too
Yup. I take notes in front of the camera just to let the person know that I'm hearing them, even if I can't answer them in that moment. I also let them know about when I'll be able to get back to them. Goes a long way.
Thank you for sharing this!
What was the talk about?
On the flip of this. For those getting started at their first speaking things, don't freak out when you look over the audience and feel like zero people are registering that you are even using real words :) . I've been on stage a lot: speaking, improv, plays, stuff. And there are countless times you'll actually be able to make some eye contact with the audiecnce if there aren't too bright of a stage light, and you will just see stone cold expressions staring back at you. And you will wonder if words are still coming out of your mouth. :) It happens. The human connection you get with a one on one encounter that your body kind of expects when you talk. Them nodding, or any expression whatsoever often goes completely absent in a speakers setting.
That's why "open with a joke" is so useful. It's not really for them! It's for you!. If you can hear a laugh from your audience, YOU start to chill out. Your body is like "ah. the mic is actually on, and I'm not having a stroke".
Another useful tip, if the scenario allows, try to hang out by the front row before your talk and chat someone up. That's who you want to then make eye contact with often during your talk. Their expression will be or at least seem to be warmer to you. And you'll feel some more calm looking at them than the random heads everywhere else.
I used to have a colleague that would always nod to things in meetings, and make a humming/agreeing ("mhm") sound once in a while. I used to find it a bit weird, he probably didn't even notice it himself. But then I held a presentation once with him in the room, and started to love that little quirk of his. Could always just find him in the crowd and feel some encouragement.
As for telling speakers you liked their talks, another higher up in the company used to send me a DM and thank/praise me. My guess is he did it for everyone, but still it felt very validating as a junior, both to be seen and also encouraged. It's a bit like with kids, tell them they're good at something (even if not), and they'll try to be, heh.
But I've tried to take that with me, and send DMs to people, where it maybe normally wouldn't feel natural for me. But after a while it does. And it can be even for small things, like "I like how well prepared you were for that meeting, any questions they had you could answer". You'll bet that person is well prepared the next time we have a meeting as well.
I have a huge problem with WFH speaking that I otherwise don't in a regular setting - I work at a fully remote, cameras off company and it is very difficult for me to talk in a meeting for longer than a minute without getting that feeling. Just me, in my room, talking to myself. I have no idea if anyone is listening or what they are thinking.
The audience is usually my internal team but I've never once seen their faces in the years I've worked at the company which definitely makes it more unnatural. It's the strangest feeling and I still haven't gotten used to it, but I think you just nailed why I feel like that!
It's basically like your internal congestion handling missing data, which it interprets as a congestion, and wants to pause the transmission.
I don't know. I dislike camera asymmetry (mine on, others off) but when everyone's is off it's just like the phone conference calls of olden days. I like it because I can pace around, stand up, stare at the ceiling to allow me to concentrate.
Another trick is to arrive early and try to talk to as many people before hand as possible. They’re your allies during the talk—they’ll stick around and root for the person they met.
Also feels like generally just being authentic
Tell the speakers why you liked their talks! And ask them about things you didn't understand.
Same with bands. "Loved your set" is one thing, "loved your set" because "it reminded me of…"/"made me feel…" is another.
The other week I said to a singer/songwriter that I had enjoyed her full band set the day before and that her guitarist had a really surprisingly dirty guitar sound, and she said "I know! and from such a clean-looking gentleman! I'll tell him that, he'll love it". We then chatted about how her music was (for philosophical reasons) not "guitar solo" territory but how inventive and supportive his playing was in that context and I said how well I thought she'd woven it all together.
The energy you bring to putting yourself in front of a crowd really in any context, whether professional or entertainment, formal/informal, planned/improvised, you take in part from the feedback from previous attempts; it's difficult to do it otherwise.
Wrote to a composer a few years ago and pianist recently with pretty focused things I wanted to compliment, and they both clearly appreciated it because they sent very long, considerate responses (longer than what I had sent initially!)
Seriously it makes their day. They’re people too!
I have corresponded at length with composers who seemed to appreciate the interest. On the other hand, I know a composer (not even that famous, just successful enough) who has his copyist answer all correspondence with stock replies, since fans don't do anything for him and just annoy him; they aren't part of the ecosystem of commissioning works that is how he gets paid.
John Paul Hayward and Trevor Alan Gomes are fantastic musicians and have done well for themselves it seems but I highly doubt they have staff for that!
Some years ago I was trying to track down a comedy TV series I watched when I was a student, along with most other students at the time, which wasn't big enough to have been later issued on DVD. I emailed the agent of the actor/producer who starred in it and he gave me his mobile number and told me to give him a call. We talked for quite awhile about the history of the series and the fun they had making it, and he said if I couldn't find a copy anywhere (I eventually found it in a film archive) I could come round to his place and search through his garage because he had video tapes of it in there somewhere. He was really cool about the whole thing, and seemed happy that his work was still remembered 30-odd years later.
I had this experience some years ago writing to an author, too. Long reply back.
For awhile I did the public speaking circuit - my focus was on infrastructure engineering, governance and supportability.
So - I would pepper my talks with real-life scenarios and anecdotes - and alot of humour - because my audiences where in the "same trenches" as me.
Then, I gave a talk to an audience of ALL corporate developers (Windows world, so .NET) - it was such a weird vibe, I have never had such a stony-faced, unresponsive crowd of attendees. (But their written feedback/reviews were great, so...)
(It also didn't start well, because the venue hosts attempted to eject an attendee because of the way he was dressed (motorcycle leathers, jeans - honestly nothing offensive) - and "didn't look like he was supposed to be there" - I intervened - it turned out that he was a tech user-group leader in the local community, and was just "different/quirky".)
> the venue hosts attempted to eject an attendee because of the way he was dressed (motorcycle leathers, jeans - honestly nothing offensive) - and "didn't look like he was supposed to be there"
How were they to know he belonged at the infrastructure engineering governance talk when the guy wasn't even wearing a fursuit?
Lack of response to anecdotes and humor, which I use a lot too, is really off-putting. You have no idea whether they've all just switched off / they're only there because they have to be, or whether they're actually listening. It's particularly bad in some cultures like Japan where the attendees are often there as a reward and so use the time to catch up on news, sleep, or just generally not listen, so you can get zero audience reaction, and that's before getting into the translation problems with jokes and metaphors, or the very different sentence structure where you have to say a complete sentence, then pause and wait for the translator to rearrange the words into the Japanese order, then say them, and then you can start the next sentence. Another bad one is where the stage is lit but the audience isn't and/or is well below the level of the stage so you're just talking into a blank void if there's no audience reaction.
Lack of response and direct human interaction is why I never pivoted to doing "online" sessions, podcasting or even online-first training sessions.
As well - the fact that technical writing (in publishing at least) has been homogenized and steered-clear of the use of humour, metaphors, idioms and analogies has also moved me away from writing/technical editing - I miss the days of "quirky" books - things like Jeff Duntemman's "Delphi Programming Explorer", which IIRC was told as a hardboiled detective mystery. Or "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford. Sure - I understand the driving commercial underlying reasons for this: profit + globalization - but I still miss those. Of course, with technical blogs available, there are still plenty of unique voices out there.
I am absolutely terrified of public speaking, and IMO not very good at it. I never apply to give talks, but I always seem to get invited to give talks or be on panels or podcasts a few times a year anyway.
Every time it is days of anxiety trying to figure out how I am going to communicate the security ideas I want people to adopt in a way that may land this time, because I am convinced it could reduce a lot of harm if I am successful.
I never say no though because for whatever reason someone respected my work enough to invite me, and maybe this time I can convince even one org to make the changes to their security posture that are going to prevent the data or assets of the users that trusted them from being stolen.
After each event is days of kicking myself for all the things I should not have said, or should have said but failed to. All the ways I could have been more effective.
When zero people have any questions or feedback after, my brain tells me in a loop that nothing I said landed, and it is devastating. Did I get in a plane and go through so much effort only to confuse people and scare them further away from doing things that actually are pretty easy?
One time after a security panel at a big conference a single person came up to me after who told me what they agreed with, what they want to learn more about, and why. That person is my co-founder now.
Talk to speakers if you connected with what they said or reach out to them after. You may be the source of validation they need to keep trying.
People always will talk to you about anything they know a lot about.
You can approach any human, of any standing, anywhere on Earth, and if you ask a question that hits them right in their knowledge center, especially if it is something they don't commonly get to talk about, they will positively engage with you.
I know speaking with absolutes on the internet is a borderline crime, but this is so reliable I think it warrants it.
I know you mentioned it, but I'm going to mention it anyway...
One notable exception to this is the person's work. Which I, personally, am not super inclined to talk about with people even though it comprises the vast majority of my knowledgebase. Maybe I'm projecting, but my guess is that Joe Schmoe isn't going to want to talk about his profession after coming home exhausted. That is, unless he's truly found his calling.
This is why a lot of "how to get people to like you" advice is really just "ask them lots of questions"
You ask enough questions about different topics and you'll get a positive reaction probably
Very true! It’s a funny dynamic where audience members are sometimes intimidated to approach speakers, while the speaker themselves really wishes people would approach them (and is worried about what it means if nobody does).
Absolutely this. One of the main reasons to give a presentation at a conference is that it means you can talk to people about it afterwards. "Hey, I liked your talk" is a freebie ice-breaker for anyone else, so it's much easier for them to strike up a conversation with you.
Beyond speakers, this is great advice for anyone whose public work you appreciate that isn't a major celebrity. I've sent questions and compliments to creators of all kinds of work I enjoy and more often than not gotten a genuinely thoughtful and appreciative response back. It could be a small website creator, a researcher in a field outside my own, an author, or an open source project maintainer.
My sense is that not many people do this and anyone who is not mega-famous rarely hears from strangers who like their work.
I'm giving my first conference talk in a few weeks.
I'm hoping it makes people want to talk to me so I don't end up sitting alone during breaks! I have not managed to experience the mythical hallway track that everyone raves about...
(Another speaker said they're bringing stickers to bribe people - shit why didn't I think of that)
One other trick you can do: mention one or two well-chosen things in your talk that are interesting and related to your topic, but that you can't go into further detail on (for lack of time). Say you'd be happy to discuss them after the talk with anyone who's interested!
This way, anyone who wants to talk to you has a freebie question they can ask (and that you have interesting thoughts on), which may lead to further conversations.
As a bonus, pointing out 1-2 connections like this usually improves your talk for everyone, by adding context.
Yes, I found that a lot of people are hesitant to ask questions when there are many people in the room (tbh sometimes even I feel like my questions may sound stupid when I'm the attendee). So I always hang around in the room/hallway so people can come and talk to me.
As someone noted, I always have my contact information (e.g., a LinkedIn profile) in my slide so people can reach out to me after the event and I actually had good conversations with people after conferences. Not only do I get feedback/questions on my presentation, but I get to expand my network.
This is great advice.
I love taking my 45 minute talks and recycling them into a smaller time format. People feel like they're getting a lot of information when you have to gloss over portions of it or skip entire sections.
I've given one talk of mine in about 5 different venues, and the 30 minute version (which was EXTREMELY truncated) got some of the best feedback, despite me feeling like I didn't cover anything.
Tip: put a big note on your closing slide that says "Come and talk to me about this in the hallway".
Once saw a closing slide that had contact details on it but also: "milk, two sugars"
oh that's a good idea, will do!
Pro tip: Every other slide (ish) is a joke referencing / setting up the next slide. Gives you a beat to change gears, keeps the audience really engaged, and lightens the mood. Also ensures you’re breaking things up into bite-sized pieces.
I gave a talk with a section on curried functions and interspersed the content slides with pictures of Tim Curry, for example.
Jokes can be tricky in talks, as they rely on shared cultural context. If you know your audience well and know what will land with them it's great, if you don't then care is needed.
I generally advise people to put some jokes in if they like but don't make the talk rely on people getting the jokes.
but don't make the talk rely on people getting the jokes
Adding to this, don't automatically include <wait for laughter> in your joke delivery. Make the joke - if it lands and the audience is laughing, you can pause until it dies down. If the joke doesn't land, you just move on and everyone will forget about it.
Personally I rarely like jokes in talks, unless they're very limited or are truly substantively related to the talk itself. YMMV of course.
That's a great example because it also acts as a mnemonic to help people remember the content, rather than distracting from it.
In case it's useful, I did a talk about giving talks earlier this year which covered various things I've encountered/learned over the talks I've done and seen
https://tagt.mccune.org.uk/ - has sections and links to specific parts of the video, so you don't have to watch the whole thing to get to a bit that seems interesting :)
This is great - thank you for sharing. Also, I love how it is all setup on your own website! Neat build!
Yay! Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do great. Normally on my last slide I include the links to my website and social media and then I encourage people to come chat with me. I also mention if I am staying around for drinks etc
I end up having the chance to speak on my current research a couple of times a year.
Occasionally I'll realize that the audience is some of the most well known names in my field and panic too much to do a good job. Having people ask to talk about my work afterwards always helps a lot with the subsequent spiraling thoughts. To be fair, I'd be happy even with criticism; that gives me something specific to improve rather than trying to figure it out on my own.
Been getting better at handling it as I gain more experience, but even then, being asked questions one-on-one really helps with knowing that the audience was genuinely paying attention.
Unfortunately I'm not the best at coming up with questions on the spot, I need time to digest the material. I admire people that can sit through a broad range of presentations and quickly have insightful questions for each one.
I'm a remote employee and the absolute zero feedback you get from presenting in an empty room to a laptop webcam is real
Is it possible for you to challenge the status quo?
For example, refuse to present anything unless at least three members of the audience agree to share their feedback in the session.
Or alternatively, include in your presentation direct questions to specific members of the audience (either pre-arranged, or spontaneous).
The flood of smile thumbs up and confetti emojis on slack and Google meet isn't enough?
Watch your next demo day meeting... Some people will get tons of reacts, comments; some people get nothing. At least in person you get the obligatory smattering of claps after the talk. When there's nothing at all, it feels like you did something wrong.
Anyone else remember Lanyrd [1]? I seem to remember that had a kind of Kudos mechanism for speakers?
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanyrd
I remember! Lanyrd was fantastic as someone that did a ton of community speaking before I ever did anything on a bigger stage.
I didn't even realise Simon W did YC
> In September 2013, Lanyrd was acquired by Eventbrite.
Best and brightest.
The creator of Lanyrd replied to another comment elsewhere on this page
Someone echoed a similar sentiment but in general I think people get great satisfaction and pride out of being told their work is good. When I worked in the food service industry nothing made me happier than hearing someone genuinely enjoyed the meal. It’s left such a lasting impression that anytime I enjoy a coffee, meal, etc I try to look the person in the eyes an earnestly say “hey this was really good.” If you don’t do this a lot you may be surprised to see just how happy this makes the person working. It doesn’t matter if they made the food or served it or even just worked the register.
I haven't been to big talks. Only more like local engineer meetups.
A few times, I approached speakers for saying I liked it but turned down, as they had to talk to people from bigger companies, and few even expressed unpleasantness to me.
Those are rare cases, so I still give props to speakers whenever I can.
My lesson was that there are shitty speakers for sure, but don't let it stop you from continuing to appreciate speakers.
I realized recently, of the thousands of blog posts I've read, videos I've watched, books I've read, I only reached out to the creators a handful of times.
And my friends are often surprised by me reaching out to strangers, so I seem to be unusually extroverted in this regard.
Which implies that there could be thousands of people out there whose lives I've affected (for better or worse!), and I'll never know. If only a fraction of a percent of them get back to me. Then that's just how it works.
I've heard that a huge percentage of people on the Internet are lurkers and that those posting and commenting are in the minority. Not sure if that's still true in the age of smartphones. I'll often leave comments on YT vids and such if they were interesting or helpful, but I would say a lot of people I know probably wouldn't do the same. I would probably not do the equivalent at an in-person talk, so that's an interesting contrast to think about.
Contrarian opinion, but being open here.
While there are exceptions, there's usually very little you'd get from in-person talks. And quite often, the people who are giving these talks are serial presenters - as a lifestyle, or sometimes career building.
But then like I said, there are exceptions. Especially when it's about something interesting being demoed for the first time, or a deeply technical conversation. Those are not the norm.
I think the missing condition here is "if you liked the talk". Not everyone likes or engages with the same material; I know folks who will effectively check out as soon as the conversation gets too techie, but they will happily sit through hours of (vacuous, to me) "life hacks" and pop-psychology talks.
I do agree that there are people for whom "the speaker circuit" is a job, and you can kinda smell it right from the presentation. But I think their numbers often depend on the type of event.
I can start by saying thank you! The name looked familiar. I remember stumbling upon her css presentation[0] And I was surprised to see one of my articles as a resource.
[0]: https://noti.st/anarodrigues/abfj0M/refactoring-css
Take a picture of the Speaker while they talk. So many times they forget to get pictures. Then send it to them on LinkedIn and you will forever be in their messages feed as that "nice person who took my picture."
Just make sure it's a nice picture!
Questions are great, the more common 'nice talk' barely makes anything. Also sometimes it feels over-engineered trying to make a smart or memorable comment.
Agree with the general concept
As someone who speaks at tech conferences, even someone just saying 'nice talk' as I walk past makes my day.
Disclaimer: Ana is a very dear friend of mine and may well be the Best Person™. Ana, if you’re reading this, the live-coded karaoke talk you gave at State of the Browser was the best I’d seen in years.
Awww thanks mate!!
After doing a talk, my second favorite thing is to get feedback.
My favorite thing (mostly works with internal talks) is to hear people using the ideas I shared or doing some of the action items I talked about.
I’ve given talks at meetups and it’s incredibly frustrating when you get zero feedback from people attending. If you liked it or didn’t, give me something!
This has been a pleasant surprise! thank you all for sharing your experiences <3
Yes, it makes a big positive difference. Even if the talks aren't good.
I wrote a post a while ago about how to be a good audience member at a tech conference: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3522
tl;dr: even if you don't tell a speaker you like their talk, definitely pay attention. Or leave. People work hard on this stuff!
But what if I liked the talk but not the speaker?
In general: Everyone could use some appreciation for whatever good shit they do, even if it's their job or "responsibility"
Your folks, your taxi driver, the guys who get the garbage, your parrot.. Throw them a compliment now and then (even better palm them a fiver too)
One time I was interacting with a stranger (so long ago, I dont remember who. Possibly just a store clerk). At the end of the interaction they looked me in the eye and said 'Have a great day'. It took me off guard, but made me feel really good in a way I couldnt put my finger on. I now say the same thing to everybody I meet in my day, in the hope I can bring somebody else that same feeling and genuinely make them have a good day.
Question, where do you live? In America, and especially on the Pacific Coast 'Have a great day' is a phatic expression [1]. It is a common parting phrase and has lost any special significance that it might have once had within a conversation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression
If I lived in a place where this was a phatic expression, I doubt it would have made much of an impression on me as I would have heard it all the time.
I live in the UK where parting phatic expressions such as 'cheers', 'see you later', and 'take care' are common. But 'Have a good/great day' definitely is not.
TIL phatic expression
and ngl yes of course I read it as something else first.
Anyway maybe they were glad that someone threw them even a phatic expression at all? :)
So true
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I hope with AI the talks get better, the past few years were so bad