Re: [UG-ADMINS] Speaker Tips?

Most of these are good suggestions for any talk (conference, UG, etc.)
Sounds like a good idea to post on a site that we could all link to, rather
than duplicating the info all over the place.


On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Chris Spruck <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Sandy!
>
> You pretty much hit everything we tell speakers at AtlantaPHP, but we
> also include "Make code examples high contrast (dark text on a light
> background instead of colored text on a dark background)". This got to
> be such a problem repeatedly that we started requiring a copy of the
> slides a week in advance for preview purposes - we allow edits up
> until the meeting of course, but this catches any big issues early.
> This also avoids the "crank out the slides 3 hours before the talk"
> factor.
>
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Sandy Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I recently put together some tips for speakers at DCPHP, and it seems to
> have helped the last few presentations go more smoothly, especially from a
> technical point of view. We have lots of first time speakers as well as
> people who don't know the space (we have a 27" TV instead of a projector).
> >
> > Do you use something like this? Any suggestions/improvements?
> >
> > "1. Test your presentation in 800x600. Many laptops can only manage that
> on these screens.
> > 2. If you're displaying code, only display 3-4 key lines and keep the
> font big. It's hard to read from a distance. Switching to a text editor
> almost never works.
> > 3. Bring an SVGA adapter for your laptop. That's what projectors and TVs
> commonly take.
> > 4. Bring a backup of your presentation in PDF on a thumb drive. That way
> if you have trouble connecting, you can go on someone else's laptop and not
> worry about font differences.
> > 5. Go for brevity and large fonts. Ridiculously large fonts still look
> small. See a Steve Jobs presentation: he has a HUGE screen but often only
> has a couple of words taking up the whole screen. This helps prevent
> reading from your presentation, which is an instant snooze-fest for the
> audience.
> > 6. Do not rely on having a Wi-fi connection. While we try to have one,
> it's always a problem point and Murphy's law says your presentation is the
> time it will conk out."
> >
> > -Sandy
> >
> > --
> > Sandy Smith - http://musketeers.me/
> > php[architect] magazine: http://phparch.com/
> >
> > Learn what's new in PHP 5.5 on Sept. 17:
> http://summits.phparch.com/summits/php55/
> >
> > @SandyS1
>
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