Letter from the UK: Speaking at Conferences Can Be Fun (Honestly!)

I'm just back from speaking at the Visma Developer Day conference in Riga, Latvia. Visma is a Norwegian software company that organizes an annual two-day conference for its developers, and it invites keynote speakers to talk about trends, managing teams, and so on. So I found myself on Monday morning standing up in front of 500 developers I'd never met before, in a foreign country, and really enjoying myself.

Public speaking is often mentioned by people when they're asked to list life's most unpleasant experiences, but actually it's something that can be fun. If you get the opportunity to speak at the STC Summit or a similar conference, I really do hope you take it.

Let me try and convince you.

Dealing with the wall of faces

One of the most daunting parts of speaking is looking out at tens or even hundreds of faces. It can feel like there's a barrier between you and them. Most people are comfortable talking to one or two people around a table, so the trick is to treat it as a similar situation.

Peter Kay is a British comedian whose last stand-up tour played to 1.2 million people. He'd begin each 20,000 capacity gig by filming the audience, striking up a dialogue, and breaking down the wall between him and the people who'd come to see him:

I try to have a conversation with the audience. For example, on Monday, I began by asking who came from Sweden, who came from Romania, etc. I asked the audience which countries I'd missed out, and they told me.

During the presentation, I asked questions about images on the slides to keep them engaged and to get a better understanding of the audience.

Structuring your presentation

There are many great videos on YouTube offering advice on how to create engaging presentations. Here are two of my favourites.

Nancy Duarte on the structure of presentations:

Carmine Gallo on the techniques Steve Jobs used to captivate his audience:

I usually end up with a structure that follows the classical rhetoric arrangement: 1) Introduce the topic 2) State the facts, plus any assumptions or definitions 3) Summarise my viewpoint 4) Provide proof I'm right 5) Address any opposing viewpoints 6) Conclude and summarise. I throw in a few comments that make me laugh, check I won't overrun, and practice the presentation a few times before the event. I never write or read from a script.

Creating your slides

One of the best recommendations I can make is, don't use PowerPoint! Instead, use Keynote, Haiku Deck or another presentation application that emphasises imagery over bullet points.

Here are two presentation to give you some ideas on presenting your slides.

Garr Reynolds on decluttering your slides:

Laurence Lessig demonstrates how you can use lots and lots of slides and videos to keep people engaged:

The audience wants you to succeed

It's easy to forget the audience wants you to succeed. They want to have a good time and they are on your side. Don't forget, the more times you present, the better you'll get.

What do you think?

Please share your thoughts below.

Ellis Pratt is director at Cherryleaf, a UK technical writing services company. Ranked the most the influential blogger on technical communication in Europe, Ellis is a specialist in the field of creating clear and simple information users will love.