175. Kevlin Henney: Advanced Techniques for Online Presentations

Kevlin Henney is an independent consultant, trainer, reviewer, speaker and writer. His development interests, contributions and work with companies covers programming, people and practice. Lately he became and expert in advanced techniques for online presentations. He has been a columnist for various magazines and web sites, a contributor to open- and closed-source software and a member of more committees than is probably healthy (it has been said that “a committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled”). He is co-author of two volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series, editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know and co-editor of 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know.

Kevlin’s beginnings

Kevlin started his professional career as a software developer and instead of giving speeches he started writing articles for user group magazines being motivated for sharing the knowledge and explaining things. One day he was asked to do a presentation in a user group event, that was at 90’s so he did create slides, printing and putting them in acetate for projectors. A whole different process but really a great experience.

After that Kevlin started to talk in front of more people and later being invited to conferences but more importantly he enjoyed every experience more than writing because of the interaction with audience.

The challenge of speaking online

Kevlin is a very physical speaker, in the sense he uses a lot the space on stage. So the change to online presentations and webinars have been a little hard.

For him the more challenging aspect is to make a connection with the audience.

Some few things he learned that helped him to improve this are:

You need to respect breaks

Use your hands to speak. Move them.

Use the frame, use visual feedback to identify the frame and use your hands to fill it

Be punctual and control your time. You may not be the only speaker in an online event.

Finally, make mistakes. Do practice as much as you can to learn fast and improve.

Kevlin’s best pieces of advice for not usual presenters

First of all, just make sure your lighting is reasonable, do not sit in front of a window. Natural light on you is helpful but the idea is ...