How to cope if you find yourself speaking at a conference and aren't sure how to proceed

Last weekend I spoke at PHP North West. It was my first time speaking at a conference and a great experience in many ways, from the preparation, to being part of the conference as a delegate and finally delivering my talk. I'd like to share some of the ways in which I prepared in case it is useful for anyone else.

I was most nervous about speaking right after I found out my talk had been accepted. It took a few days to calm the nerves and was clear that if I was that nervous when I actually came to talk while feeling that nervous I would bomb. I read around a bit and came up with my own strategy that made me feel more comfortable about the whole thing. Here are the things I did.

1. Learn from books, courses, online advice

There has been a lot written about doing presentations, from how to make a good presentation, how to build a slide deck in Powerpoint or Keynote to how to overcome nerves and fear of public speaking. The first thing I did, which may be suitable for others with a predilection for reading, is to read a bunch of books and articles to pick up any advice about what I might be in for. At the very least this gives a grounding about what you're expected to do.

2. Watch speakers that you enjoy listening to

This can have two effects, so it's best to go into watching other people speak knowing what you want to get out of it. One thing that could happen is that you see someone speak and think how great they are and how you can never match up to them - demotivating. A better approach is to watch other people speak, be critical and analytical and see what it is you like about them. Thinking about what they are doing should inject some of their qualities into your speaking.

3. Prepare

The preparation portion will be the most time consuming part of giving a talk. It's where you do the research, decide what you're going to say and create the slide deck. The amount of preparation you have to do will probably depend on how well you know your subject (which should hopefully be pretty well in the first place!). It may be that you can simply brain dump what you know, organise it into something coherent and design some appropriate slides. There may also be a significant amount of research around the subject you do to make sure you know your subject inside out.

4. Practise

Nothing will get you through your talk more than practise. When you're particularly nervous or there is no time to think about your talk directly before you give it the practise you did will get you through. It will allow you to go in to auto pilot, get lost in the talk and distance yourself from any nerves. This will be the most important thing you do.

5. Get feedback

Your friends lie. You will do the presentation for them and they will say it's good or fine and that's no help at all. They are bad judges because they don't want to hurt your feelings. They also hear you speak all the time and therefore may not be able to assess you properly. Even if you ask them to be honest it's unlikely you will get any useful feedback. Sure they might offer some pointers for improvements here and there but this will be nothing like the feedback you get from the conference goers. Try getting in front of people you don't know, maybe at a local user group.

Speaking at PHPNW

I'm speaking at PHPNW next month. This will be my first time speaking at a conference. I've spoken at weddings and in team meetings at work before but this will be the first time that people can choose whether to hear me speak, or not.

I'll be speaking about Phalanger and compiling PHP to .Net. Jadu have been using Phalanger for a number of years now and it saves us a lot of time and effort in maintaining a product supported on PHP and .Net stacks. My talk will be about how Jadu came to use Phalanger, why it's right for us and an introduction to mixing PHP and .Net.

The thought of doing the talk has become less daunting over time. I submitted the paper fairly close to the deadline and didn't really hold out much hope of getting it accepted. Lo and behold it was accepted and I felt the most nervous right after finding out. Could I coherently talk for almost an hour and get across how useful Phalanger can be?

After giving the idea of actually having to do the talk a couple of weeks to settle in I started to plan what I was going to talk about. I had approximately three months to prepare. I had a general plan to spend a month researching and putting together a first draft presentation. I would then practise and refine the presentation for a month and spend the final month practising, practising and practising.  Three months feels like a long time but it soon flies by. Having a plan and sticking to it as well as the process and feeling of progression over time has really helped to ease the nerves and get used to the fact that I can do it.

I'm now into the final month and it's mostly practising with a little refining here and there. It feels like it's been a long process and I sure will be pleased when I can come home at night and not think about, plan or have to practise any more. While not particularly nervous about having to do the actual speaking, after all the time I have put into the presentation I hope it at least goes reasonably well and that people get something from it.