How to start speaking at conferences

[00:00] I started giving conference talks about 13 years ago and I've got bad
[00:03] news: public speaking is terrifying.
[00:06] But, so are rollercoasters.
[00:08] And horror movies.
[00:10] And people seem to like those.
[00:12] So every year, for whatever reason, a few people will ask me
[00:15] how to break into public speaking.
[00:17] And so today I prepared a few tips based on my own experience.
[00:21] So, here are my ✨ TOP 10 ✨ pieces of advice in roughly the chronological
[00:26] order of the life of a conference talk.
[00:28] First, befriend organizers.
[00:31] In my experience, events are organized by people who are every bit as hooked
[00:34] on organizing events as speakers are hooked on speaking at them.
[00:38] So, they tend to put on more than one conference over
[00:41] the course of their careers.
[00:42] Think about it.
[00:43] They're the ones looking for speakers and you're the one looking for a conference.
[00:47] It's worth getting to know them.
[00:48] You never know where these friendships will lead.
[00:51] I made friends with an organizer of a conference at an indoor water
[00:54] park in Ohio, and a few years later, he was inviting me to speak at the
[00:58] largest tech conference in Bulgaria.
[01:01] A connection so weird, I'm still confused by it.
[01:04] But my first real talk was at a regional conference in Boulder, Colorado.
[01:08] Even though my presentation was pretty rough,
[01:10] I got to know the organizer, I showed him how much I appreciated him, and
[01:14] thanked him for the opportunity, and then he invited me back the next year, too.
[01:17] And, a year or two after that, he became the organizer for the
[01:20] national conference series, and he helped me break in there as well.
[01:24] That led to the opportunity for me to speak at maybe 10 more events
[01:28] around the US, including my first keynote slot just a few years later.
[01:32] So, if you want to make a name for yourself speaking, don't waste time
[01:36] buttering up other speakers like me.
[01:38] Find a conference organizer and get to know them.
[01:41] Next, wait for something worth saying.
[01:44] Most people have no interest in speaking.
[01:46] It's a lot of work and a lot of stress and the pay is awful.
[01:50] Just kidding, unless you're a big enough draw to sell tickets, there is no pay.
[01:55] That means I'm always skeptical of my own impulse to speak.
[01:58] So, each time a new conference rolls around, I ask myself, "why
[02:02] exactly do I want to do this again?"
[02:04] I know myself pretty well.
[02:05] And I'm comfortable with the fact that part of the answer will always be that
[02:08] I simply crave the validation of others… it's why I'm making this video right now.
[02:14] But that alone isn't good enough.
[02:16] If you get onstage with nothing to say but, "please like me," people
[02:20] will withhold that validation.
[02:22] Besides, merely wanting attention and applause won't be enough
[02:25] to get you through the pain of pitching topics to organizers,
[02:27] writing and rewriting outlines, and meticulously crafting slides.
[02:31] There are cheaper, simpler ways nowadays to get yourself
[02:35] some meaningless attention.
[02:36] So, when a conference is approaching, if I don't have anything to say,
[02:40] I'm not afraid to take a pass and let somebody else have that slot.
[02:43] Instead, I take it as feedback that maybe I haven't been engaged enough
[02:47] in my work to extract anything useful.
[02:49] Or, maybe I've failed to take the time to reflect on what's interesting
[02:53] and meaningful about my life lately.
[02:55] CFP's are their own game.
[02:58] A CFP, or a "Call for Proposals," is how many organizers collect
[03:02] pitches from speakers which they then review to determine who to
[03:05] invite to speak at a conference.
[03:07] Responding to a CFP typically requires speakers to submit a title,
[03:10] an abstract, and some kind of pitch.
[03:12] If you've ever submitted to a CFP, you may have already discovered
[03:16] that writing a good abstract is nothing like preparing and delivering
[03:19] an excellent conference talk.
[03:21] Abstracts are a totally unrelated format that leverages a completely
[03:24] different set of skills.
[03:26] But, similar to how research scientists spend half their time writing grant
[03:29] proposals to secure funding, if you don't play the game, you won't get anywhere.
[03:33] The goal of that game: given the finite number of slots at a given
[03:37] conference, convince the organizers that they should reject everyone
[03:40] else's talks and accept yours instead.
[03:43] So, if you want my advice, treat every talk proposal like a game of
[03:46] Mad Libs that specifies the things that organizers are looking for.
[03:50] Give your talk a provocative, but self-explanatory headline.
[03:54] Then start the abstract with a pithy one-liner to get their attention.
[03:57] Be sure to make ample use of line breaks, too.
[04:00] Reviewers have to read a lot of these, and the last thing they
[04:02] want to see is a huge wall of text.
[04:05] Next, clarify the problem that you're solving in a sentence or two at most.
[04:09] Then, introduce the solution and highlight its benefits.
[04:12] Conclude by explaining not what you will say, but what the
[04:15] audience will get out of the talk.
[04:17] Identify who the talk is for and who it is not for.
[04:20] And really think about this one.
[04:21] If the talk is for everyone, it might actually be coming
[04:24] across as blasé or unfocused.
[04:27] Once I started rigorously following this formula, my success rate getting
[04:31] into conferences shot through the roof.
[04:34] There really are just a certain number of boxes that you need to
[04:37] check that organizers are looking for.
[04:39] Give your ideas breathing room.
[04:42] It takes me at least one calendar month to make a talk.
[04:46] And it used to take me at least two.
[04:48] That's not because creating the talk requires that much time behind
[04:51] a desk, actively working on it.
[04:53] It's because all my best ideas for a talk arrive as my brain
[04:56] asynchronously chews on the topic.
[04:58] And the thing about asynchronous thought is that it happens on its own schedule.
[05:01] You can't force it.
[05:03] So before I go on a run or while I'm cooking dinner, I'll prompt myself
[05:06] to think about an aspect of the talk that I'm working on, and then listen
[05:09] as my brain starts generating ideas.
[05:12] As those ideas pop into my head, I'll add them to my reminders app
[05:16] and sort and triage them later.
[05:18] Your mileage may vary, but I'm not sure I've ever had a clever idea that made the
[05:22] final cut into one of my presentations while I was staring at a computer screen.
[05:27] So, if you're feeling stuck, go outside, touch some grass, and get some fresh air.
[05:32] Outline outline, outline.
[05:34] When I'm in the homestretch a few weeks before the talk, I start actually
[05:38] putting pen to paper and create a rough outline of the talk's structure.
[05:41] I start by picking a rhetorical strategy, and then I break up the topic
[05:45] into some number of sub-components that I can start fleshing out with the
[05:49] individual points that I want to make.
[05:50] Then I set it aside and start over from scratch.
[05:53] This time, drawing a storyboard.
[05:55] I take the sections and points from my outline and try to imagine what
[05:59] I might convey visually on slides to go alongside each of them.
[06:02] My outlines are intentionally lightweight and disposable, because
[06:06] I'd rather recreate a third or fourth or fifth outline than marry myself to
[06:11] the fixed structure of the first one.
[06:13] I'll keep repeating these activities until the structure and flow of each section,
[06:16] as well as its subordinate points, is so compelling as to feel inevitable.
[06:21] And, I'll know I'm done when I've convinced myself that I might
[06:25] actually be right about whatever it is that I'm talking about.
[06:28] Before I call my outline finished.
[06:29] I read it adversarially and rework anything that a reasonable
[06:33] person might disagree with.
[06:35] When the talk feels airtight, then it's finally time to move on.
[06:39] Become one with your slides.
[06:41] I have been a programmer for over 20 years.
[06:44] So, naturally the apps I know best are developer tools, right?
[06:48] Nope.
[06:48] It's Apple's Keynote.
[06:50] I know every keyboard shortcut.
[06:52] I assign custom macros to menu items that are otherwise only reachable with a mouse.
[06:57] I learned AppleScript just to automate the most laborious aspects.
[07:01] A hallmark achievement of my career was when somebody from the Keynote
[07:04] team saw a tweet of mine about an obscure bug that I'd found, and he
[07:08] reached out to tell me that I might be pushing the app a little too hard.
[07:11] For whatever reason, I can happily write code with a dozen different editors,
[07:15] but I would never build a presentation with anything other than Keynote.
[07:19] So why do I care so much about presentation software?
[07:22] It's because conference talks are an audio-visual format and
[07:25] the words that come out of your mouth only tell half the story.
[07:29] This isn't Shakespeare.
[07:30] If there's nothing compelling to look at, people will pull out their phones and
[07:33] laptops and you'll lose their attention.
[07:35] In order to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, I pair every single thing
[07:39] I say with a bit of visual flourish.
[07:41] I also move fast enough that the audience will realize that if
[07:44] they so much as break their gaze they'll miss something important.
[07:47] That's why my slides are full of BIG BOLD TEXT, illustrations that
[07:51] gradually build-in to analogize a concept, animations that
[07:54] speed up as my stories unfold.
[07:57] It's also why I place visual anchors that I return to regularly between sections
[08:01] to give people who get distracted some means of hopping back on the bus.
[08:05] Every statement is always paired with a click of my presenter
[08:08] remote—click, click, click.
[08:10] I average 500 clicks in a 30-minute talk.
[08:13] But it's not just about the audience.
[08:15] As a speaker, my slides are like a pitcher's backstop.
[08:18] If my mind wanders and I lose my footing, one click is typically
[08:22] all it takes to regain my focus.
[08:24] Information without emotion is useless.
[08:27] There is one question that I ask myself countless times when creating
[08:31] a talk: "How do I want people to feel after they hear this?"
[08:35] If speaking were just an exercise in conveying information, I
[08:38] may as well hand the audience a README to read to themselves.
[08:41] Instead, I sit down with my guitar and write software-adjacent
[08:45] power ballads, pouring my soul into every morsel of content.
[08:50] The way I see it, if I can make an audience feel my pain, maybe they
[08:53] can learn a lesson without making the same painful mistakes that I did.
[08:57] And if I can close my talk leaving people feeling empowered to make a
[09:01] change in their life or career, and optimistic that they'll succeed, it's
[09:05] more likely that they'll actually try.
[09:08] Rehearse transitions if nothing else.
[09:10] I hate rehearsing and generally don't recommend it… but for
[09:13] the inconvenient fact that it usually makes performances better.
[09:17] Ideally, by the time I fly to the venue, I'll have instituted a Slide Freeze and
[09:21] I'll have nothing left to do but practice and iron out any remaining wrinkles.
[09:25] Usually I'm trying to cram 60 minutes of content into a 30 minute time slot,
[09:29] so I focus my practice on eliminating superfluity and tightening my delivery.
[09:34] I'll run through each subsection of slides repeatedly until the words I
[09:37] say don't change between run-throughs.
[09:40] Then, I'll repeat the process in larger and larger sections until
[09:43] I'm running through the entire talk.
[09:45] Measuring success almost entirely by whether the runtime
[09:48] will fit into my time slot.
[09:50] It's like marathon training, but for your mouth.
[09:53] If I don't have time for that much practice, I'll focus on just
[09:56] the transitions between slides.
[09:58] Because each slide requires me to hold so much in my head, I'll drop it all if
[10:02] I click to the next slide and suddenly realize I forgot what I was gonna say.
[10:06] Don't write a script.
[10:08] I'll come right out and say it: never write out a verbatim script and
[10:12] definitely never bring it on stage.
[10:14] The best case scenario is that you'll memorize your script so well that
[10:18] you'll never need to look at it.
[10:19] And yet from the audience's perspective, you'll still manage
[10:22] to sound like you're reading it.
[10:23] Flat.
[10:24] Distant.
[10:25] Impersonal.
[10:26] Remember, you're giving a talk about raising miniature ponies, not delivering
[10:31] the State of the Union address.
[10:32] You know the topic well, and you're over-prepared as hell.
[10:36] Just talk.
[10:37] And while you're at it, disable the presenter display, and instead
[10:40] mirror whatever the audience sees on your computer screen.
[10:43] Looking at that screen for anything more than a fleeting glance will inevitably
[10:47] disrupt the flow of your performance.
[10:49] if you really need a sneak preview of what the next slide build looks
[10:52] like, it probably means that you don't know your slides well enough.
[10:55] People get good at what they do most often.
[10:58] So trust me on this: practicing without a script or a presenter
[11:02] display will make you good at speaking without either of them.
[11:05] By forcing myself to constantly think on my feet and express my feelings
[11:08] authentically as I build and rehearse talks has—against all odds—made me
[11:13] very good at standing up in front of thousands of people and speaking
[11:16] for an hour as if each idea is spontaneously coming to my mind in
[11:20] real time, because it literally is!
[11:23] Look, I understand going on stage without knowing exactly what you're
[11:26] going to say takes a lot of courage.
[11:29] But believe me when I say: it will pay off.
[11:32] Remember none of this matters.
[11:34] It's normal to be nervous before speaking.
[11:37] It's understandable to feel like you're not important enough to say
[11:39] things in front of an audience.
[11:41] If you're terrified of being bad at this, I get it.
[11:44] Don't worry about it.
[11:46] You will be bad at this, at least at first.
[11:49] Speaking is a weird skill that takes a lot of time to develop.
[11:52] If you ever saw me before I go on stage, you would see I'm an absolute
[11:57] trainwreck of anxious energy, even today—no matter how prepared I am.
[12:02] And, if you ever see me after I walk off that stage, it's only because I've
[12:06] yet to escape to my hotel room, turn off the lights and take a four-hour
[12:10] long bath as my adrenaline levels crash.
[12:13] So why do I keep subjecting myself to speaking if it makes me feel this way?
[12:17] It's because conference talks are how I find meaning in my career.
[12:21] Each talk is an opportunity to crystallize whatever I'm most passionate about and
[12:25] share my experience in ways that might be useful or impactful for others.
[12:29] But even then, conference talks also, kinda, don't matter at all.
[12:34] At worst, speaking is a distraction from whatever your
[12:36] boss thinks you ought to be doing.
[12:38] And at best, it's an extra credit assignment.
[12:40] So try not to take it or yourself too seriously.
[12:43] It's true, I put a lot of pressure on myself.
[12:46] Every time I go out, I have every intention of pitching the perfect game.
[12:49] But I also keep in mind that all of that pressure is entirely
[12:52] self-imposed, which grants me the power to let it go whenever I want.
[12:56] And my favorite way to release that pressure is blasting all of that
[12:59] nervous energy in the direction of an unsuspecting audience.
[13:03] So remember to have fun, don't take yourself too seriously and don't
[13:07] beat yourself up for making mistakes.
[13:09] Just show up as your real, vulnerable self and, in most cases, audiences
[13:14] will find themselves rooting for you.
[13:16] That's why I never tell other speakers, "good luck," before they go on stage.
[13:20] I always say, "have fun," instead.
[13:22] So long as you have fun out there, odds are somebody else will too.
[13:27] Thank you for watching this.
[13:29] You can find more talks at our blog at testdouble.com or by subscribing
[13:33] to our YouTube channel and poking around at some of our videos.
[13:37] Have fun!