Sponsored by:. Recent I wrote about Speaker style bingo which called out a bunch of common anti-patterns I see and indeed have done myself in technical talks. This post is the flip side that β the post-talk post, if you like. So how did it go? Indeed the process of me doing this also helps me improve both this talk and my own presentation style; I can make this better by explaining it to you and I hope that many you are able to take this and make your talks better too.
Usually the stage is empty as people fill into a room and are greeted by a static screen. I wanted people to be engaged and entertained as soon as they arrived which is why I played the How to Talk Australians video. This was a bit of a gamble; there was every chance it was either not going to work culturally when I was on the other side of the world or some people may even be offended.
I started playing this at exactly T-4 minutes before my session was slated to begin so I came on stage right as the time slot started. Norwegians tend to be very quiet compared to audience in other parts of the world like Australia and the US so this was a big win. I also mention Norway and squirrels. You only get a small fraction of the audience laughter coming through from my mic, but this had a lot of people amused.
It brings relevancy and context to where you are and I do that multiple times later on with the Sweden jokes too. I gave away free Pluralsight passes to everyone and I think leaving people with something is a great way to get longer term engagement. That requires really good timing though; I rehearse like crazy and refine tweet timing down to the nearest minute of the talk.
Frankly, I hate going to technical talks and only seeing slides. Even when the speaker is engaging, I just feel a little short-changed and it never leaves a lasting impact like actually seeing stuff happen does.
