Tips for speakers

We want more and more people to have the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience in the NNUG network. To help you prepare for a talk, we have collected some simple tips and tricks to help you give a good presentation.

Practise your content!

Nobody is naturally good at speaking in front of a crowd; it takes a lot of training and practice. The best way to prepare a talk is to practise, and practise again. Try recording yourself with the webcam on your PC. That way you can see whether you come across naturally, practise moving your gaze across the audience, and not least: you quickly become aware of any filler sounds you make, like “mm” and “hmm”.

Try to create natural transitions between some of the slides in your presentation, so that you prepare the audience for what they are about to see. You should always be one step ahead of your own slides; make sure you are never surprised by your own content.

Silence is good

Learn to avoid filler sounds when you speak. They are a natural mechanism for holding the floor in small groups and conversations, but they work against you when you are giving a talk and every ear is turned to you. Silence is always good: it lets the audience reflect on what you have just said and clear their minds before the next point.

Look at the audience, not the wall!

• Try to move your gaze across the whole room.
• Don’t look at the wall; you should be confident about your own slides and what is on them.

Arrive in good time

• Check out the room where you will be speaking, and step up on the stage.
• Connect your PC and make sure the projector and everything else works.
• Take time to greet and chat with people, and try to get comfortable with the crowd. It helps a little with the nerves.

Try to stand still

• Many speakers nervously pace back and forth; try to stand still.
• Sometimes it is right to move around the stage, but do it with a plan and a purpose.

Show that you know what you are talking about

• There will always be someone in the room who knows more than you; that should not stop you from giving a talk.
• Show that you know what you are talking about, even if you are not sure about every little detail. Nobody is perfect; we all make mistakes.
• If you seem unsure of what you are talking about, the audience may feel you are wasting their time. There is always someone who knows less than you and can learn something new; focus on that.

Other tips

• Standing behind the lectern gives a little more security, but it also creates more distance to the audience. Try to move closer to the people in the room.
• Add notes to your slides and use presenter mode. That gives you a clock to help you, and notes to help you remember all the points on each slide.
• Invest in a wireless mouse or presenter remote, so you don’t have to be near the laptop to change slides. This lets you move more naturally around the stage and get closer to the audience. If you do NOT have a wireless mouse, at least avoid running back and forth.
• Always be honest. If someone asks something you don’t know, say so directly, but offer to help find the answer, for example by asking a colleague or someone you know.
• Split your talk into sections, so people can learn something even if they only catch parts of it. Don’t build it so that the audience must follow every one of your points to understand the conclusions.

Remember that our goal is to inspire people to explore new things when they get home; it is not physically possible for anyone to learn lots of details from a short talk. It’s important to have fun when giving a talk. If you are comfortable and having fun on stage, it will rub off on the audience.