Writing a Technical Talk That Lands
One idea, three demos, zero bullet-point walls - how to build a conference talk people remember on the train home.
Start from the one sentence
Before you open a slide editor, write the sentence you want an attendee to repeat to a colleague a week later. If you cannot write it, you do not have a talk yet - you have a topic.
The shape that works
- The problem, felt. Two minutes of something the audience has lived.
- The idea. One sentence, on one slide.
- Three demonstrations. Each one earns the idea a little more trust.
- The catch. What this approach costs. Skipping this loses the room.
- The one sentence again.
Demos
- Record a backup video. The Wi-Fi will fail.
- Type nothing live that takes more than fifteen seconds.
- Increase the font size until it looks absurd on your laptop.
Nobody has ever complained that a code font was too large.
Slides
Slides are a backdrop, not a document. If your slide is readable as a handout, it is unreadable as a slide. Write the handout separately and link to it.
Rehearsal
Run it three times: once alone out loud, once for a friendly colleague, once at a meetup. The third run is where a talk stops being a draft.
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Comments (1)
The catch slide is the part I always skip and always regret. Adding it to the next talk.
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