In this episode of Fundamentals of Software Engineering, Nate and I dig into public speaking, recorded live from a conference floor between our own talks. We start where most people actually start, which is nowhere near a keynote stage. Nobody goes from never having spoken to opening a major conference, and pretending otherwise puts people off before they begin. We talk about the places that genuinely welcome a first talk: the lunch and learn at your own company, a local meetup, a book club with a few colleagues. Lower stakes, smaller rooms, shorter slots. I make the case that volunteering to speak on something is the best motivation there is for learning it properly, because you have to learn it once to know it and again to teach it.
From there we get into the craft. We cover writing an abstract that survives a committee reading hundreds of them, why one talk should carry one idea, and what happens to your slides when you keep shrinking the font to fit more words in. We talk about live demos and why a recording is not cheating, tethering off your phone when the venue Wi-Fi dies, and building expansion joints into a deck so the same material can fill twenty minutes or four hours. Then the part nobody admits to: nerves. I still get them after twenty years. We finish on delivery, filler words, starting on time, ending on time, and why the room is almost always on your side.
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Key Highlights
🎤 Nobody starts at the keynote: Going from zero to keynoting KubeCon is vanishingly rare. The realistic first stops are a lunch and learn, a local meetup, or a book club with colleagues.
📚 Volunteer to speak on what you want to learn: The best motivation for learning a topic is agreeing to teach it. You learn it once to know it, and again to explain it to a room.
✍️ One idea, one talk: If you have two ideas, that is two talks. Abstracts fail when they try to be broad, and committees are reading hundreds of submissions for very few slots.
🖥️ Slides are not a handout: A deck that works as a read-it-later document serves neither the room nor the reader. If the font keeps shrinking to fit the words, the words belong somewhere else.
📹 Record the demo, and bring your own Wi-Fi: Recorded demos are not cheating, especially for anything slow. Tethering off your phone saves the talk when conference Wi-Fi fails, and it is worth testing beforehand.
⏱️ Build expansion joints into the deck: Know what you can skip and what you can stretch, so the same talk fits a twenty minute slot or a four hour workshop. Start on time, end on time.
😬 The nerves do not go away, and the room is on your side: After twenty years the nerves are still there. Almost nobody in that room wishes they were giving your talk instead: they came to learn something.
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Resources & Next Steps
🗣️ Start with a lunch and learn, a local meetup, or a book club at work
🎥 Record yourself on a video call and watch it back to hear your own filler words
📶 Tether off your phone as a backup for venue Wi-Fi, and test it before the talk
🎧 Subscribe to Fundamentals of Software Engineering on Apple Podcasts
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Chapter Timestamps
00:00 Recording live from the conference floor
01:30 Why a mixed conference beats one full of your own crowd
04:30 Nobody goes from zero to keynoting
06:00 Volunteer to speak on what you want to learn
07:30 Lunch and learns, meetups, and book clubs as a first step
09:00 Handling questions, including the ones you cannot answer
10:30 Finding your own presenting style
12:00 Telling the audience what they are getting into
13:30 Submitting on a topic you have not learned yet
15:00 Writing an abstract around one hook
16:30 One idea is one talk
18:00 What committees see: hundreds of submissions, few slots
19:30 When the font keeps shrinking, the words are in the wrong place
21:00 Slides that try to be a handout serve nobody
22:30 The night before, with no venue Wi-Fi
24:00 Recording demos, especially the slow ones
25:30 Tethering off your phone as a backup plan
27:00 Expansion joints: the same talk at any length
30:00 Nerves, after twenty years of doing this
31:30 The room is on your side
33:00 Knowing your first sixty seconds by heart
36:00 Watching yourself back to hear your own pace
37:30 Filler words and the power of a pause
40:30 Arrive early and check the room
42:00 Start on time, end on time, the room is not yours
45:00 Practising a nine minute keynote to the second
46:30 Evergreen material and giving a talk more than once
49:30 Your first attempts will be bad, and that is the job
52:30 You already know something most people do not
