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by zwischenzug 2895 days ago
Best advice I had about giving talks (from a non-techie) was 'tell a story'. People like stories more than information. If they want information they can mine you for it afterwards.
2 comments

Don't just tell a story. Use the tools of story telling. Have a three act structure (Setup, confrontation, resolution). Have a plot. Use foreshadowing. Use one of the common generic stories as a framework (Hero's journey, coming of age, etc). Make it personal - bring in either parts of the audiences life, or of yours. And close with a positive message

You know when you were a kid, and you had that one funny relative who'd always tell great stories? Be that relative.

Is it strictly a tech talk? As someone else said here, skip the cruft and get to the point. I came to your talk to learn about the technology, not your life story.

Some people are good at wrapping tech talks into interesting stories. But they are very rare in my experience. If you don't have a story to tell, don't force it. Don't try to present everything as this grand idea that's related to everything you've done since childhood. It gets old really fast.

I've seen students take a course in speaking where they hammer into them this "three act structure". Invariably, the talks they give would be much better if they would just stick to the technology.

A lady who runs a daycare once told me, it's easy to get kids to eat their vegetables, if you hide them in mashed potatoes (as a rule, kids hate vegetables and love mashed potatoes).