On Wednesday 23 March 2016 02:19 PM, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:

On Wed, Mar 23 2016, Peeyush Aggarwal wrote:

I was going to suggest this myself. 30 minutes (25 talk + 5 minutes for questions) sounds reasonable.

From many years of experience listening to talks, I have this rough analysis of the phases of a conference talk. Note that this goes slightly out of the main topic of discussion.

Assuming the talk starts at time T=0. 1. T+5 => Introduction, getting to know speaker, setting up time. Audience alert level - High 2. T+10 => Topic introduction and basics of the topic. Honeymoon period. Audience alert level - High->Medium 3. T+20 => Honey-moon period of the talk. This is the time the audience reaction to the talk is mostly set. 80% of people will determine by this time whether to continue to listen, listen passively or walk off. Audience alert level - Variable (determined by talk quality & speaker engagement) The talk should be covering its meaty portions by around this time. 4. T+30 => Cooling-off period. Depending on how talk quality/speaker engagement so far, the audience would now be giving reactions. If the talk is engaging, the alert level would be same as (1) or even higher. If average->bad, you will see disengagement from the audience. 5. T+35 => Mental disengagement kicks-in. However good a talk is,around 30-35 min into it, you will start disengaging from it and getting distracted unless the speaker is really good in carrying people along and audience is still pouring in/engaged. I have tried hard to listen to 40 min talks the full extent but I have found 90% of the time, your mind starts switching off around (6) - one reason being the voice monotony - however good the speaker is. Given that here are some tips of engagement or giving a good talk. 1. Use the stage to your advantage - Keep walking, turning and looking audience in the face - select a few people randomly for this. This will force audience to follow you around and reduces boredom. Use the full stage for your talk. Dont just stand at one place. Standing just on the podium is the worst thing to do. 2. Don't speak in a monotonous voice- Try to vary your voice to suit the phases of the talk. Dont make it sound like a boring lecture at the same pitch and tone. It tends to put people off and in worst case to sleep. Use variations of pitch and tone to your advantage. 3. Come to the core of the topic in first 10 minutes - Dont use elaborate 10 min + introductions. People dont have that kind of patience these days. Dont forget that your talk is judged in first 10-15 mins in this age of twitter. 4. Keep the session interactive - Structure the presentation so you give interaction options in between the talk rather than at the very end. This puts audience on their toes and makes it more interesting. Keep it as a conversation (dialogue) than a monologue. 5. Add a touch of humour - I have often found this is one of the best ways to engage the audience - to add a light touch of humor where it fits. Everyone reacts to a good laugh. 6. Make the presentation interesting - Pictures speak more than a 1000 words. Slides with just text are *BORING*. Use graphics/video to good effect. Theme your presentation. Also reduce the amount of text per slide - not more than 4-5 lines at worst case. 7. Give real life analogies - Wherever possible, try to give real life analogies rather than pedantic examples. I thought I will write this - as it seemed to fit the tone of discussion. These tips are from many years of speaking experience. You are welcome to ask or write back to me on this. Back to the main topic - I believe talks should be 30+5 minutes. 30 mins for the talk and 5 mins for the transition.

Also, when scheduling the talks, please put a 5 minute gap between the ending of a talk and the beginning of the next. People need time to move from one hall to another and settle down.

-- Regards, --Anand ---------------------------- Software Architect/Consultant anandpillai@letterboxes.org http://twitter.com/skeptichacker

Well written! some really good advice! Worth a bookmark. On Thu, 24 Mar 2016 at 10:12 Noufal Ibrahim KV <noufal@nibrahim.net.in> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 24 2016, Anand B Pillai wrote:

[...]

...

I thought I will write this - as it seemed to fit the tone of discussion. These tips are from many years of speaking experience. You are welcome to ask or write back to me on this.

Back to the main topic - I believe talks should be 30+5 minutes. 30 mins for the talk and 5 mins for the transition.

[...]

This is good advice. Might be worth putting up a page on the site with all this as "tips for speakers".

-- Cordially, Noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

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