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How to Give a Good Talk

(blog.sigplan.org)
271 points pykello | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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derangedHorse ◴[] No.45114549[source]
Listing out the categories of value proposition is useful when considering what to include in a talk, but in my experience, the entertainment part is just as crucial to getting people’s attention. I’d be interested in seeing how people approach entertainment in a technical context and how it can be used to solidify a talk’s main ideas.
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1. raesene9 ◴[] No.45115863[source]
One point that's important on the "entertain" front is that it doesn't need to mean humour/jokes. More likely it's things like well designed slides, interactive elements like demos or anecdotes to break up technical content.

Humour can work in presentations but it's really hard to pull off well. A lot of jokes rely on things like shared background/experience/cultural touchstones, so tricky to do in a conference where you might not know those things about your audience.

If you do use humour, I'd recommend not making it core to the talk, so if people don't get the jokes, it doesn't ruin the talk for them. Also generally use it sparingly, the odd meme can be funny, one on every slide probably not a great idea.