[group-organizers] Lightning talks?

Trey Hunner trey at treyhunner.com
Fri Sep 4 00:18:30 CEST 2015


Sorry for the wall of text. I have been meaning to write a blog post on
my experiences hosting lightning talk-oriented meetups but I haven't
done so yet.

Here's my experience, which seems to parallel much of the other feedback
given.

For our meetups we have always allowed speakers to use their own
laptops, but we also make sure we have a loaner laptop ready for
speakers that show up with slides but no laptop.

For time limit, I prefer 5 minutes if possible.  This doesn't allow a
lot of in-depth talks requiring detailed introductions, but it does seem
to encourage more first-time speakers and new programmers to give talks.

We remind our audience multiple times that we want to encourage new
speakers and talks from new programmers and that we're here to help.  We
often say "if you have done even 1 hour of research on a topic, you are
probably more knowledgeable than at least some of your audience members."

We also have a spreadsheet we use to keep track of speaker information
so we can follow up with them and to make sure that our various
co-organizers don't overbook or underbook talks on any given night.

We started lightning talks at our meetup without a strict time limit or
a cue to speakers to wrap it up.  We found this was a big problem
because if we had 8 lightning talks scheduled they could range anywhere
from 40 to 120 minutes depending on how long each speaker took.

We have tried two different formats which have both worked well.

1. Hard 5 minute cut off

At our JS meetup we have a hard five minute cut off.  I signal the
speakers at 4 minutes using some audience participation (everyone golf
claps to signal 4 minutes).  Then at 5 minutes I signal the audience to
applaud which results in a somewhat abrupt cut off.  95% of speakers end
before 5 minutes, either because they realize they're going too slow and
wrap it up quickly after 4 or they wrap it up naturally with time to spare.

At 5 minutes, we ask speakers to unplug their laptop, move off the
podium, and answer questions for about 2 minutes.  The next speaker then
has plenty of time to setup as questions are being answered.  We usually
do about 8 speakers this way and call it a night because at this point
there is plenty of material to seed discussions with after the talks.
We like to end with socialization.

2. Speaker-imposed cut off

At our Python meetup we recently decided to counter the long lightning
talk problem by asking each speaker how long their talk will take.  I
ask them when they want me to signal them and when they want me to kick
them off the stage (which has not happened yet).  All of the speakers
have estimated their talk time appropriately so far, so this seems to
have worked well.

On 09/01/2015 09:17 PM, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> Hi folks.
> 
> What are people's experiences with doing lightning talks at a meetup?
> 
> I guess the thing that concerns me the most is setting up a half dozen
> laptops on a projector they've never been hooked up to before.
> 
> Do people do a "designated laptop" for the talks, and ask presenters to
> bring their slides on a USB flash drive?
> 
> Also, what's a good duration?  Maybe targeting 5-10 minutes?
> 
> Thanks.;
> 

-- 
Trey Hunner
http://treyhunner.com

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/group-organizers/attachments/20150903/b84a9b6f/attachment.sig>


More information about the Group-Organizers mailing list