General Tips

At PyCon, there are several things our speakers can do to ensure a succesful presentation:

1. Be Prepared - Be sure to have all presentation materials (notes, slide decks, digital media, etc.) ready to go with time to spare. This will allow more time for you to become comfortable with the conference presentation facilities.
2. Take advantage of presentation staging times (TBD) - During off hours or other designated times, presentation rooms will be available for speakers and other presenters to get familiar with the Audio/Visual equipment at PyCon. Bring your laptop, presentation media, etc. to note the proper settings best suited for your particular presentation.
3. Communicate early and often with PyCon staff - If you have a question, please ask; we're here to help!

Designing slides

PyCon does not have a published volume of proceedings, but the slides and other materials for talks are made available on-line. Therefore, be sure your presentation can be turned into a format suitable for online viewing. PDF, HTML and plain text are all good. Keep graphics reasonably sized for web access.

• The slides are primarily to support your talk

• Slides should not be too "busy"

  • Keep slides short, as "reminders what to say"
  • Each bullet point not more than fifteen words
  • Group related points

• Only hit the most important points on the slides

  • Expand as you speak if there's audience interest

• At PyCon we use projectors with a resolution of 1024x768. Presentations look best when the slide size is the same as the projector’s native resolution.

  Microsoft PowerPoint defaults to a resolution of 720 by 540. To change it to 1,024 by 768, go to File: Page Setup and enter 14.22 and 10.66 inches for the width and height of on-screen slides. Ignore the warning about exceeding your printer's margins.

Presentation advice

• For a 30-minute slot, you have 25 minutes to talk plus 5 minutes for questions. 45-minute slots mean you have 40 minutes to talk and 5 minutes for questions. Time your talk accordingly.

• Rehearse your talk before giving it, and time how long it takes. Practice it several times -- using a camera can be helpful.

• View your slides on a projector and see if they're readable. Are the font sizes large enough? Is there enough contrast between the text and the background?

• Don't try to squeeze more than 10 lines of code onto the slide; if the font gets too small, the code will just be a meaningless set of squiggles to people in the back of the auditorium.

• As much as possible, stick to the top two-thirds of the slide area. Try to leave the bottom portion of your slides blank. Sometimes people can't see the bottom of the screen due to the room layout or people's heads.

• Introduce yourself to your session chairperson no later than the break before your talk. Once the presentations start the chair will be focused on managing the session.

• If in doubt, err on the side of not talking long enough. It's better to have the audience thinking "That talk left me wanting more. I need to go talk to the presenter/download the package/go to the BoF," than "That talk stretched 15 minutes of material into an hour. What a waste of time."

• Don't waste time on introductory material, e.g. explaining Python's syntax, explaining XML for fifteen slides.

• Giving a talk is not a writing problem or a design problem. It is a performance problem. If you are a new speaker, you should probably spend more time practicing your presentation than you spend writing and designing the slides.

• Have your important research done before you start trying to prepare the talk. If you run out of preparation time, don't skimp on rehearsal; instead, cut scope from the talk, or make do with a simple but readable visual design.

• Try to verify ahead of time that your computer works with the AV system. If you are going to rely on speaker's notes, consider printing them out ahead of time in case you can't use your laptop screen for some reason. Remember Murphy.

Speaking technique

• If you are nervous, there's nothing wrong with admitting that.

  • Remember, the information you present is your talk's primary value
  • PyCon audiences are very forgiving

• Take time to yourself before you speak

  • Deep breathing is always good preparation
  • Your nervousness will be less apparent than you suppose
  • Be in the room a few minutes early if you can, and chat to people already in the room as you prepare

• Don't just read the slides

  • People came to hear what you have to say

• Check that the audience is hearing you ("Can you hear me at the back?") and understanding you ("Does that make sense to everyone?"; "Are there any questions about that?")

• Don't forget about the microphone, whether it's attached to your lapel or is on the podium in front of you. Some speakers will turn to point at the display and talk away from the microphone; be sure to point and then turn back.

• Look around at your audience and pay attention to their body language

  • If they are nodding up and down, they understand and/or agree
  • If they are watching you intently, they are paying attention and trying to learn
  • If they are yawning, perhaps it is time to move on/go faster

• During the Q&A portion of the talk, always repeat any questions that were asked without a microphone - otherwise many people in the audience won't hear the question.

Other resources

• S5 -- if you want to write your presentation slides in HTML, S5 is a collection of CSS stylesheets and JavaScript code well-suited for standard-compliant HTML presentations.
• Docutils/S5 -- if you want to write your presentation slides in reStructuredText, Docutils has S5/HTML support.
• SAGE/LISA Conference Presentation advice
• How to Give a Bad Talk
• How to (not) Give a Talk (PDF)
• Conference Presentation Judo -- aimed at people giving three-hour tutorials, but many suggestions apply to shorter talks like those given at PyCon.