How to speak at conferences:
Ashley Richard's Blogher Discussion Guidelines are here: BlogherConferenceDiscussionGuidelines.pdf
What are conference organizers looking for:
- interesting new research, premise or projects/products
- dynamic speakers
- variety of speakers
- people who are up and coming that are fresh voices
How to ask to speak, or submit, in order to present:
etc.. please help fill this in..
or list resource pages for people learning to speak publicly.
- provide listing of speaking experience. Offer references
- link to any audio/video clips of you on the web
- work on titles of presentations - are the compelling? fun? catchy? informative? short? do they match the presentation?
- think about topics you can speak on. Outline the 2-3 main points for each subject (beware of the "stuff too much in one piece" problem.
- practice, practice, practice - in front of the mirror, in front of friends, Toastmasters, church, public events. Nothing beats practice.
- On the other hand, don't memorize the presentation or it will sound stilted. You should know the presentation and supporting information backwards and forwards, but be natural.
- if you are working with computer slides, learn how to use them well. Books like "Beyond Bullet Points" give the basics. When you see a great slide show, ask the presenter to share how they built it. Notice the use of images and single words, rather than text and bullet points.
- read and practice the art of improvisation (Impro is a great book). Being flexible is a valuable speaker's asset.
- if you are speaking in intercultural settings, LEARN about the other cultures in advance. Consider how you should speak when listeners are listening in a second (or third) language.
- watch out for jargon and acronyms. In most presentations you don't have the luxury of everyone having the same depth of understanding and/or frame of reference as you do. If you have to use technical, country-specific, or other jargon, define it up front.
- Good speech tips and sample speech topics to consider.