Please don't celebrate half-assing your conference talk. Doesn't matter if it's a small event or a juggernaut like #PyConUS. People pay to travel to the event, take time away from family and work, and have some expectations regarding what they will learn. Understandable!
The hallway track is great value but it isn't everything. It's your responsibility to give your public speaking engagement justice. There's many tips but at least don't prepare your slides the night before.
I bombed a talk twenty years ago.
Everything that could go wrong did.
Ten years ago, I had a talk that went amazing.
Everything that could go wrong did.
Difference is that in ten years I became a slightly better speaker.
@ambv I would just add "if you aren't sure that you can pull it off".
In some cases slides are just a tiny bit of preparation. Your experience and knowledge is the most important piece of that anyway.
For instance, I can get away with a talk in my native language about a subject I'm fully submerged in being prepared just an hour before. However I need a couple of week to prepare any talk in English.🤷🏻♂️
@lig I disagree. Winging it is risky in any language, because a lot about a talk comes down to timing. If you're starting "just an hour before" then you can't know if you'll undershoot or overshoot with your presentation.
Sure, you might get lucky. But I don't think we should be counting on that working every time. Ultimately, our bar should be higher than being able to "get away with a talk".
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