Conference Presentation Judo

Length: 30 minutes

I gave this talk at YAPC in St. Louis in 2002. It's about how to give a successful three-hour conference tutorial.

If you look around for advice on public speaking, you'll find that most of it says the same things: face the audience, speak clearly, don't put too much text on a slide. My talk is about tricks you won't hear elsewhere.

The talk is accompanied by detailed notes. You should not read the notes before the slides. You should read the notes concurrently with the slides, or afterwards.

Special offer: If you're going to be giving a technical presentation on programming or some other computer-related topic with which I'm familiar, I'll be glad to look at your slides beforehand and make suggestions. Send me email.

1. Conference Presentation Judo
2. Conference Presentations
3. Conference Presentations
4. The Biggest Mistake You Can Make
5. The Second Biggest Mistake You Can Make
6. The Biggest Mistake You Can Make
7. The Single Biggest Mistake You Can Make
8. On Content
9. On Content
10. On Content
11. On Content
12. The Big Content Mistake
13. Introduction to XML -> What is XML?
14. The Long Introduction
15. The Long Introduction
16. The Long Introduction
17. A Bit of Advice
18. Get to the Point
19. Get to the Point
20. Illustrations
21. Illustrations
22. Illustrations
23. Illustrations
24. Illustrations
25. Speed
26. Speed
27. The Guy in the Second Row
28. The Guy in the Second Row
29. Questions
30. Accordion Sections
31. The Bonus Section
32. The Bonus Section
33. Digressions
34. Evaluations
35. Evaluations
36. Jokes
37. Friendly Faces
38. Friendly Faces
39. Small Change
40. Insults
41. Proofreading
42. Biggest Mistake I Ever Made
43. Thank You