Mastodawn

Simon Willison Nov 26, 2022

I think 25 minutes may be my new favourite talk duration

On the one hand, it's a really difficult space to fill: it's similar to a 5 minute lightning talk in that you have to edit drastically to fit the space, but it's a longer slot so it takes ~5 times longer to prepare

But the act of editing down to 25 minutes enforces getting straight to the point while also being long enough to explore more complex issues

And then later people can watch the talk video at 2x speed in just 12.5 minutes!

Show thread

Brian Dorsey

@simon I agree. I like 5 and 20 minute talks and then 2-3 hour workshops. ~45 minutes is the hardest to do well. Really needs good storytelling. Thinking about it in terms of what someone will remember a week later, it’s a very rare 45 minute that folks will remember more of than the same core content in 20-25.