Re:I do (and don't) prepare a talk for a tech conference. (2...
by ghaff on Sunday April 14, 2024 @08:12AM
(#40030578)
Exactly. If you hand me a presentation and hopefully some notes associated with it and tell me that I need to fill in, I can do it but I'm going to need to spend some time (and will probably rearrange things a bit).
But if you tell me give some variation on your talk about $X, I can probably be ready in about 30 minutes. (And, in fact, I've dropped in a conference presentation in response to a 3am email because another speaker forgot they were supposed to be there.)
Re:I do (and don't) prepare a talk for a tech conference. (2...
by toast0 on Sunday April 14, 2024 @02:20PM
(#40033164)
> However for material that I've presented a bunch of times, I no longer need to rehearse.
All of those previous presentations basically count as rehearsals. Depends on you, but if it's been a year or several since you gave one, it's probably a good idea to do at least a mini rehearsal before you do it again, but if you're doing one a quarter, once you're good, you should be good.
For one off talks, or decks that one doesn't use often, yes you're 100% right. When I'm in that situation I rehearse the talk over and over and over again to the point where I no longer need notes. My goal is to get to a point where I neither sound like I'm reading from a script, nor would I get thrown off if I get interrupted.
However for material that I've presented a bunch of times, I no longer need to rehearse. There was a period of my life where I could on the fly give a talk on a particular topic at a moment's notice. Ideally I'd have a bit of time to customize some bits to the specific audience/venue, and sure I'd rehearse those. But the bulk of it I could stitch together content in just about any order on the fly.