How to write a conference talk

To write a conference talk, work in four stages: choose one idea the audience will leave with, write an abstract that promises what they will learn, outline the talk as spoken sections with the minutes for each, and only then build slides, one point per slide. Plan the questions as part of the talk rather than as whatever happens afterwards. Most talks that go wrong went wrong at the first stage, by trying to say three things in a slot built for one.

The timeline under this article runs from the call for proposals to the day after the talk.

One idea, stated in a sentence

Before anything else, write the sentence you want an attendee to repeat to a colleague at lunch. If you cannot write it, the talk is not ready to propose.

The conference talk deck is a thirty minute reliability engineering talk whose idea is on its cover: the team deleted its own database on purpose. Everything else in the nine slides serves that sentence, from the outage that started it to the drills that followed and the rules that survived. A talk titled “lessons from an outage” could have been about anything; this one could only be about one thing.

One idea does not mean one point. It means every point is evidence for the same claim.

The abstract: a promise reviewers can judge

The abstract does two jobs. It persuades reviewers to accept the talk, and it becomes the programme description attendees use to choose a session. Zach Holman’s speaking.io puts both in one line: keep it abstract, and keep it interesting.

In practice, a good abstract covers three things in one or two paragraphs: the problem the audience recognises, what they will learn, and why you can speak to it. George Mason University’s writing center adds the context for academic events, where a proposal typically sets out the background, the significance, the method, the findings and the contribution, and reminds writers to follow each conference’s guidelines to the word.

Three details decide more proposals than they should:

• The title. freeCodeCamp’s CFP guide argues for clarity over cleverness, preferring a title that says plainly what the talk is about to a string of buzzwords.
• The audience level. PyCon US asks for it explicitly, so attendees can judge whether the talk fits them.
• Anonymity. PyCon US hides author information in its first review round and asks that the title, description and outline not identify the submitter. The idea has to carry the proposal on its own.

The outline: spoken sections with minutes

Once accepted, confirm the slot length and write an outline before any slides. PyCon US asks for exactly this in its proposals: an enumeration of what you intend to say with time estimates, usually as a two level bulleted list. It is good practice even when nobody asks.

A thirty minute slot is not thirty minutes of talk. Take off five for questions and a couple for the start, and you have about twenty three. The conference talk deck spends them in a shape most good technical talks share:

1. The hook. One incident and one number: eleven hours and forty minutes to restore service.
2. What was really wrong. The reported cause against the three things that actually cost the time.
3. What changed. How the drills ran, one a fortnight, in production hours.
4. The evidence. A before and after table of six measures.
5. What to take home. Six rules, sized to photograph.
6. The ask. Break something on purpose this month, with the templates public.

Write minutes beside each section and make sure they add up. If they do not, cut a section now; it is far cheaper than cutting it after the slides exist.

Slides that support the talk

Build slides from the outline, one point per slide. The TEDx speaker guide’s rules are a sound baseline for any conference: no slide should support more than one point, avoid bullet points, and use 42 point type or larger. It also recommends 1920 by 1080 pixels at 16:9 if the organiser gives no format, which is worth confirming before you design anything.

The conference talk deck adds two habits worth copying. Its two chapter dividers are just an oversized number and a short title, which gives the audience a sense of progress and the speaker a natural pause. And its before and after slide is a plain table of six measures with the change in a third column, because the audience needs to trust the numbers before the six rules on the next slide mean anything.

The keynote presentation shows the opposite end of the range: twelve slides for forty minutes, four of them nearly empty, because a keynote is paced by stories. A technical session usually carries more evidence per slide; a keynote carries more silence. Know which you are writing.

Write the first and last minute in full

The middle of a talk should be outlined, but the first minute and the last minute are worth writing word for word and learning.

The first minute is where nerves are worst and attention is highest. Open on the story or the number, not on your name and job title, which the chair or the programme has usually covered. The conference talk deck’s speaker could open on the Tuesday in November when a routine migration dropped a table, and the room would be listening before the second sentence.

The last minute is what people carry out of the room. Restate the one idea, make the ask, and say where the materials are. Then stop talking and take questions, rather than thanking the audience three times while the clock runs.

Plan the questions

Questions are part of the talk. Run the talk for one colleague who does not know the subject, write down every question they ask, and prepare a one minute answer to each. Questions that need a chart get an appendix slide after the close.

Decide what stays on screen during questions. The conference talk deck’s last slide carries the call to action, the address of the public drill templates and the speaker’s email, so the most useful information is visible for the whole question period. The thesis defence presentation uses its questions slide to restate three starting points, which quietly nominates the ground the speaker knows best.

For the notes that carry you through the talk itself, how to write speaker notes sets out a pattern that fits one idea per slide.

Common mistakes

• Proposing a topic rather than an idea. Reviewers can judge a claim; they cannot judge a subject area.
• Writing slides first. The outline is where the talk is fixed. Slides built first get defended instead of cut.
• Filling the slot. A talk that uses all thirty minutes has no questions and no margin for a late start.
• Speaker introductions on three slides. One line on why you can speak to this is enough.
• Ending on thanks. The last slide is on screen longer than any other; give it a job.

Build it

A generated deck assigns every slide a role, and the question and answer role has five layouts for the slide that stays up at the end; the Q and A slide page shows them. If your slot is five minutes, the lightning talk format changes almost everything above except the one idea.

Present from present mode: arrow keys, Space, Page Down or j to move forward, N for notes and F for full screen. The notes pop out into a separate window titled Speaker notes that you drag to your own screen, and the pen and highlighter let you mark a slide live, which is a paid feature. The guide to presenting with speaker notes and the pen covers the setup.