How I Prepare to Speak
This is the procedure I use to prepare for speaking at conferences. It may work for others, it may not. It may be good, it may be bad.
- Be asked to speak
- Be unsure about it for a few days
- Be asked if you are going to move your ass and do it already
- Think title
- Send proposal at deadline +/- 48 hours
- Spend the next week or two thinking of cancelling
- Figure out what the title means
- Spend the next N-1 weeks until the conference with a constant dialog in your head about what you should talk about
- Turn that constant unorganized dialog into a little story
- Write down the story headings in slides
- Attend the conference
- Sit in the back while you polish slides
- Start talking
- Show slides
- Stop talking