How I prepare a talk for a tech conference (2022)

Talk Length, Timing, and Organization

• Many favor shorter talks (25–30 minutes) over 45–60, arguing talks should signal interesting ideas, not teach everything.
• Strong norm: stay on schedule; overruns are seen as disrespectful to audience and following speakers.
• Some blame speakers; others say organizers must enforce timing with clear expectations, countdown clocks, and hard cutoffs.

Intros, Credentials, and “Legitimacy by Proxy”

• Some presenters skip or minimize “about me” sections, assuming bios are read and audience cares more about content.
• Others want brief context to assess relevance and expertise, but dislike long CV-style intros or flattery-heavy introductions.
• Debate over credentials:
  • One side views affiliation/track record as a useful Bayesian prior when choosing talks.
  • The other warns against argument-from-authority and prefers trust based on substance.

Humor, Memes, and Presentation Style

• Many dislike slide decks filled with memes, gifs, or long entertainment segments; these read as nervous filler or time-wasting.
• Light, topic-related humor, subtle jokes, or narrative storytelling are generally appreciated when they don’t derail content.
• Some conferences lean heavily into performance and entertainment, which juniors enjoy but seniors may find vacuous.

Practice, Preparation, and Demos

• Strong advocacy for extensive rehearsal, timing runs, and recording oneself; practice improves flow and reduces reliance on notes.
• Others struggle to rehearse (find it cringe or unnatural) yet still give decent talks; some rely on deep subject familiarity and improvisation.
• Disagreement on live demos: many recommend pre-recorded demos to avoid typos and technical failure; a minority deliberately embrace live coding and possible failure as authentic and engaging, with local fallbacks.

Slides and Information Density

• Critique of “walls of text”: they split attention between reading and listening.
• Preference for simple slides with minimal text plus rich speaker notes or a separate blog post for depth.

Q&A: Value vs. Downsides

• Broad agreement that speakers should repeat or summarize questions for clarity and recordings.
• Split on whether Q&A should exist:
  • Critics cite grandstanding, off-topic rambling, and low value.
  • Supporters see interactive discussion as the main reason to attend live, recommending curation (online submission, upvoting, hand-votes) to filter good questions.

Content vs. Performance

• Repeated emphasis that useful, actionable content matters more than polish.
• Smooth but empty talks are seen as a bigger failure than rough delivery that genuinely teaches something.