My Gripes With Tech Talks

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2024-12-09 22:00:03

I often go to conferences (have been to three this year), and watch a lot of technical presentations on YouTube. In other words, I watch a lot of people engage in public speaking. It brings me no joy to say that many people doing these talks (at conferences or in other contexts), struggle with giving a proper technical presentation.

I don't mean to say they don't understand the topic they are speaking about. What's lacking is the ability to present it in a manner that ensures the audience who are not already experts in that one specific subject, retain something at the end of the talk.

This problem, while sort of shallow and "cosmetic", actually hinders the spread of valuable knowledge that these accomplished professionals are trying to disseminate. As someone who has been a speaker before, it frustrates me that totally fixable issues make technical content less accessible and less enjoyable.

In fact, it frustrates me enough that I've decided to write about it. It's not that I'm some sort of public speaking guru - I'm a regular engineer who sometimes has to present technical topics to a technical audience. I just have a few annoyances that I've accumulated over the years as a listener. If you ever give a talk or preso, I hope this list will help you make your stuff better. Also, please remember that all of this is coming from a genuine place - I deeply appreciate people sharing their expertise no matter how it's packaged, and am only trying to give constructive feedback.