On a conference speaking routine
The other day I was lucky enough to get to chat with Bridget Kromhout on an episode of Arrested DevOps about speaking at conferences, which is something I may or may not have done a few times. It was a great experience - ADO is a great podcast and it's always lovely to talk with Bridget - and it reminded me that I'd been planning to blog about my conferencing routine for a while. So here goes!
Preparing
As I mentioned on the podcast, I've gotten into a pretty regular routine when it comes to preparing talks for conferences. The specifics of this won't work for everyone, and you'll want to experiment to see what works for you, but here's what's been working pretty well for me:
Writing an outline: I'll usually start putting together an outline 3 weeks or so before my talk. This helps me to clarify what I'm going to say, and during this process I'll keep my abstract or proposal in front of me so I can make sure I don't stray too far from what I said I was going to say. If I feel like I need more clarification on what I want to say and when, I'll go from an outline to something more long-form like a blog post to really flesh out my ideas. I like writing, so I've always found this step to be fairly enjoyable as well as being incredibly helpful.
Preparing slides: I don't start on my slides until I have an outline, because I can't know what should accompany a talk until I know how the talk is going to go. But once I have an outline, slides are pretty easy. The top-level outline turns into an agenda slide (so both the audience and I know what we're going to cover) and title slides for various sections, and then I just iterate and add more cat pictures details until I'm happy with it. I don't have a hard and fast rule for how many slides I have, but recently I've been averaging recently 60-70 slides for a 40 minute talk. (Your mileage may vary depending on how much detail you put in each of your slides.)
Practice practice practice (but not too much): Once I know how I think the slides should go, I will start practicing my entire talk. To get a feel for how long the talk is, I will keep going all the way through without stopping, pausing only to note down the slide number where there's something I want to change - it's always been pretty easy for me to remember what on each of those slides I wanted to change when I go through them immediately afterwards. The first couple runs I'm making bigger changes, making sure that the talk makes sense and flows the way it should, and the next couple runs I'm making sure I know the talk well enough to give it even if I don't have my speaker notes. I'll usually only do 4-5 complete runs through the talk because otherwise I will get bored of hearing it and rush through the actual talk, which isn't good, but I do download a pdf of my slides (sans speaker notes) to my phone to keep going over the material.
Getting feedback: For talks I haven't given before, I like to get feedback from at least a couple people, usually after I've done my first pass through my slides. I'll try to get one person who knows the material really well to make sure the content is correct, and one person who doesn't know it well (or can pretend that they don't) to make sure the talk flows and makes sense from an outside perspective. It can also help to get feedback from people familiar with a particular conference to make sure the talk fits the audience. Different conferences have different cultures and styles, so jokes or references that were appreciated at one might fall flat at another - you don't want your talk to be too full of inside references that might end up alienating some of the audience.
I usually aim to get feedback on slides a week or so before I leave, and to do all my practicing in the 1-2 weeks prior to giving the talk. I will continue making edits up until the night before (so conferences, quit asking for me to provide slides 2 weeks in advance!) and in general my goal is to have the big picture solidly in my mind 2-3 weeks before the talk and the latest details and polish fresh in my head when I give it.
Traveling
Unless a conference is very very local, you'll have to travel to get there. And even if it is local, you'll probably have a slightly different routine for it than for your regular day-to-day life. Here's some things that I've found most helpful in my travel routine:
Luggage: Having proper luggage has made traveling way easier. For very short trips, I will bring just this backpack. For longer trips, I'll bring either the combo of that same backpack and this larger messenger bag or my larger Timuk2 Aviator backpack and this smaller messenger bag. I like to have one smaller bag with me no matter how I'm traveling for taking just the essentials to the conference itself rather than lugging around something larger. For extra-long trips I may pack a rolling suitcase - if Timbuk2 ever offers a customizable rolling suitcase I will give them so many dollars because over the years I've been very pleased with the durability and number of pockets in their luggage and I want all my luggage to have trim that matches my hair.
A packing list: Brains are not always the best at remembering things, so I've made a packing list in Google Keep with everything I might possibly need for travel. Aside from the usual (clothes, toiletries, laptop/chargers, and so forth) I have some optional items for conference travel (my GridIt full of adapters and a notebook don't come with me on personal trips, for example) and for international travel (passport and a pile of international power adapters, mostly). This prevents me from forgetting anything important and so removes quite a bit of stress from my traveling process.
Pack light: I hate checking luggage, so I always pack lightly enough that I can carry whatever luggage combo I have onto the plane with me, and when I can I will upgrade to whatever economy plus option gets me on the plane sooner so that when other passengers inevitably decide to place both their carryons in the overhead bin instead of putting one under the seat (and seriously, don't do this), I've already had room to pack mine. However, all my luggage is unique-looking enough that if I am forced to gate-check something, I can identify it easily at baggage claim.
Separate travel gear: I used to have a tendency to forget things like toiletries or pajamas that I was still using at home and so had to wait to pack until right before I left, but I solved this problem by just buying two of everything. I now have a completely redundant set of pjs, workout clothes, and toiletries that just live with my luggage in the closet so all I have to do is grab them and pack the rest. Again, my strategy here is to minimize chances for me to forget anything.
At The Conference
I've written before about how I handle conferences as an introvert, but there's a couple additional things that I think about when I'm speaking.
Protecting my voice: The very first conference I spoke at, I was just getting over a cold and that meant my voice was very nearly giving out on stage. While you can't always prevent getting sick, you can take other steps to make sure your voice feels its best when you're giving your talk. If there's some conference social events before I'm scheduled to speak (such as a party on the first night when I'm speaking on day two of a multi-day conference) I'll make sure to talk as little as possible and probably leave early so I'm rested and don't make myself hoarse shouting to have a conversation in a noisy room. I also make sure I'm well hydrated the day of, that I have water on stage with me, and I bring cough drops and throat lozenges when I travel just in case.
Checking the AV: Whenever possible, I'll show up a bit early to the room I'll be speaking in to check the AV setup, so that when I plug in for the talk itself I know that the displays will be in the right configuration, I'll be able to see the speaker view in Keynote but the audience won't, the aspect ratio of the displays looks correct, and so on. Most of the time I use a presenter remote so I'll make sure that it's working beforehand as well (batteries! Always pack spare batteries!).
Backing up slides: I prefer to always present from my own laptop whenever possible just so everything is familiar and set up how I expect, and luckily most conferences I go to are on board with this. But sometimes AV equipment has its own idea. One time I was at a conference and we could not get any Mac to project properly - 3 different Macbooks failed to connect to the display, but the Windows laptop in the AV booth was working, so instead of using Keynote I had to present from a PDF on that Windows machine. Always make sure you have a PDF backup of your slides, and don't be so dependent on speaker notes that you'll be completely lost if you can't use them. I usually make minor tweaks to my slides up until the morning of my talk, so that morning when I leave my room I'll make my final PDF backup (and make sure it's in my Google Drive just in case my laptop catches on fire between then and my talk).
Notifications off, phone off: Right before I go onstage, I'll turn off notifications on my Mac (and quit any programs like chat clients that would be likely to notify me of things) and either turn my phone off or put it into silent and airplane mode so that nothing will interrupt or distract me when I'm talking. In the hour or so before my talk I'll make sure my laptop is charged as I've found there's usually not power on stage, and when I'm plugging in right before my talk I'll activate Caffeine to make sure my laptop doesn't get sleepy and wander off.
After the Event
Usually as soon as I'm done I want to relax, unwind, and enjoy the rest of the conference, but there are a few things I'll make sure to do:
Sharing slides: I put most of my slides on SpeakerDeck right after I talk, and then I'll tweet them out on the conference hashtag (if there is one). I'll usually do this as soon as possible after my talk so I can then put my laptop away and get back to more conferencing.
Phone back on: Once I'm offstage I'll turn my phone back on/out of airplane mode, and this is when I'll usually check twitter. It's nice to get positive feedback from the internets, as well as to get a better feel for which points resonated with people. I do try to read the room while I'm speaking for this, but it's also nice to be able to see which points people tweeted and retweeted the most when I'm not mostly focused on talking.
Answering more questions: Even if I do leave time to answer questions on stage (I sometimes don't because I'm sick of condescending comments thinly disguised as questions), there are always people with more questions afterwards. I'll answer these on Twitter when I have time, and right after the talk I'll try to take a few minutes to chat with people in person - but off to the side or in the hallway so the conference organizers can get on with setting up the next speaker on stage if they have to.
So there you have it. This is the process that I've been developing that has been working pretty well for me as a speaker. And last but not least, don't forget to eat your celebratory cupcake (or donut, if a cupcake can't be found). Celebrating achievements is important!