Give a Lightning Talk

Trey Hunner / @treyhunner

My name is Trey. I have a lot of experience with workshops and tutorials and with lightning talks.

Lightning talks are a great way to get started with your speaking career.

I'm going to share some tips that I'm hoping will help inspire you to give your first lightning talk.

Thinking up a topic 💭

• Review the familiar or teach something new
• Tell a story or teach a skill
• Stay general or dive deep

When thinking up a topic remember: you want to deliver value to your audience.

• That can mean reviewing a familiar concept
• Teaching folks a new skill
• Shedding a little light on a topic that's new or unfamiliar
• Entertaining people with a fun story
• You can talk really broadly about a subject to just barely introduce it
• But you could also dive deep into a really niche topic that only a handful of people know about.

Prepping talk material 📝

• Make an outline while planning your talk
• Set expectations quickly and early
• Stay narrow if possible

• Use an outline: make a bulleted list of the points you'll cover and hone that list down to something that fits in 5 minutes
• The 1st thing you'll want to do is set expectations
• If there's background information necessary, review it or state that it's needed
• You only need one takeaway for a five minute talk
• The fewer the takeaways the better
• Don't be afraid to cut things out because you can always elaborate more later

Don't be too adventurous ⛔

• Stay near your comfort zone
• Use slides: don't do live demos
• Keep it short

• Keep it simple
• Limit the number of variables to decrease the likelihood that things could wrong
• For your first talk, use slides
• Don't use too many slides
• Live demos are really hard to pull off so don't even try. You can always show demos to people after the talk.

Comprehension 📖

def use_dark_text_on_a_light_background():
  and_make_your_font_size_big()
  also_avoid_putting_too_much_text_on_a_slide()
          

• When showing code blocks, make sure people can read the code on a projector in a well-lit room
• Use dark text on a light background. Don't use white text on a black background. This is actually harder to read on a projector.
• Make your font size big so people can read it in the back of the room
• Don't put too much on each slide

Rehearsing 🎻

• Write speaker notes
• Your talk is a scripted performance
• Don't plan to improve but prepare to do so

• Write speaker notes.
• Edit and re-edit your notes.
• Script your talk as much as you can.
• No shame in scripting it. Performances are fun.
• Ideally, remove non-essential parts you notice while rehearsing
• Worst case planning: if you have 80% of your talk left and 30 seconds to go: what's the ten second takeaway phrase you'll deliver?

Keeping cool ⏳

• Stay within the time limit
• Try to embrace the unexpected
• Finishing up: thanks, unplug, answer
• Chat with folks afterward

Time limit:

• Lightning talks have a 5 minute limit
• As you approach that limit: panic. Sorry: I mean don't panic
• If you're ending too soon, give people your ten second pitch and move to questions

After the talk:

• After your talk, unplug & move out of the way so the next speaker can setup
• When answering questions after your talk: it's okay to say you don't know and it's okay to skip Q&A completely
• If you are an introvert, Congratulations: you just broke the ice. Now we've got something to talk to you about.

Thank You! 💓

Trey Hunner / @treyhunner Python teacher & technical trainer

Any questions?