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@joshsmith01
Created September 12, 2017 06:18
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# Technical Speaking
## Basics:
### ( ) Introduce yourself
Proportional to the talk
### ( ) Longer full-feature talk === more intro
### ( ) Lighting talks === more succinct intro
- ( ) Name
- ( ) Where you work
- ( ) How long have you been doing this
- ( ) Anything that can give you credibility
- ( ) Use the Meetup board to cheat and get more intro in
### ( ) Be clear
- ( ) Ensure that your message is getting transmitted; fully.
- ( ) You can’t control reception, but you can certainly affect transmission
- ( ) You can do anything you want on stage, except one thing; be confusing.
### ( ) Be Focused
- ( ) A common trait in tutorials is to finely focus the topic by about a few minutes
- ( ) Ted Talks, famously, have an 18 minute limit
- ( ) Use notes from your presentation
### ( ) Treat the audience with the most respect
- ( ) Give them something
- ( ) Share what you’re going to do
- ( ) Use Codepen
- ( ) Use GitHub
- ( ) Use the most common area to share, but don’t over share
- ( ) You have statute of limitations on how long you have to share
- ( ) Share prior to
- ( ) Links, articles
- ( ) Code snippets, handouts
- ( ) Tell them how much more is left with a progress indicator
### ( ) Be on time
- ( ) Use a clock to track yourself
- ( ) Hit your time
- ( ) Aim for ± 30 seconds
- ( ) Remember the dot at the beginning on the blank side? That was a one pixel signal to me that the slide deck is working.
### ( ) Use the best tools that you can
- ( ) If you like slides, be good at your slides
- ( ) Popups and notifications ruin your presentation
- ( ) Have backups
### ( ) Do the Prep Work
- ( ) Spell check
- ( ) Fact Check
- ( ) Notes
- ( ) Practice
## Advanced:
### ( ) Never apologize
- ( ) Don’t give your audience something to fixate on
#### Go easy on the live coding
- ( ) Kind of like making jokes, don’t do it unless you know you’re good
- ( ) Live coding can be really boring for some
- ( ) Coding mostly goes wrong for me in private
- ( ) If you must, then share your work
#### Know your environment
- ( ) Is it day or night
- ( ) Does it have a dark room or not
- ( ) Can people ask questions that all can hear?
- ( ) Can you control any of the environmentals?
- ( ) Can you perform a site survey to determine room temp, brightness, natural lighting issues, self-locking doors.
### Technicals
- ( ) Use appropriate font size for heading
- ( ) Use appropriate font size for body
Go easy on distracting .gifs
- ( ) Use appropriate color
- ( ) Use a progress bar
- ( ) Use a timer on the back end
- ( ) One of the rudest things is to miss your time.
- ( ) For anyone following
- ( ) And the audience
- ( ) Allow for bathroom breaks if longer than an hour
- ( ) But short, bigger venues will have the logistics worked out
- ( ) Use notes
- ( ) Use a template if possible
- ( ) Rehearse
- ( ) Use a blank slide with a 1 pixel marker in the bottom so you can see it but no one else can
- ( ) Use a remote
### Gear:
- ( ) Have backups
- ( ) Backup slides
- ( ) Backup server,
- ( ) Thumb drives,
- ( ) Internet access?
### Appearance:
- ( ) Look sharp
- ( ) Dress like you’re standing in front of people
- ( ) Hot lights, might be sweaty
- ( ) Dark shirts can hide pitting
- ( ) Sweaters or sport jackets
- ( ) Deodorant antiperspirant
- ( ) Sweaty hands? Bring a towel
- ( ) Don't turn your back on the them
### Audience:
- ( ) When asking questions, make sure all can hear
- ( ) Mics, face the crowd, stand
- ( ) Pay attention
- ( ) Take paper notes if you can
- ( ) Follow along
- ( ) No “Stump the Chump” question
- ( ) Have you ever been driving and your passenger gets mad that you missed a turn or chose a longer route:
- ( ) It’s because the driver is concerned with far more than scenery. There’s pace, cadence, everyone else in the car.
- ( ) The same is true for speakers
- ( ) They are ensuring that each person in the audience is “getting it”, pace of the talk, time, communication between support staff.
### Ask for real feedback
- ( ) A good rule of thumb for audience members is to provide 3 good, 3 bad
- ( ) Audience members should be professional
- ( ) Audience, give real feedback
- ( ) If you can’t say it to the person’s face, then maybe don’t say it
- ( ) I’m not necessarily a fan of anonymous feedback
### Summarize
- ( ) Reiterate what you said at the beginging
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