Speaker Prep Day

Welcome to Speaker Prep Day!

This half-day workshop will help you to deliver a great talk at TestingCup 2019. You don’t need to be a speaker to join in – perhaps you’ll plan for something next year!

We’ll choose things to do from the list below – there are more if you’d like to work on your practicing, on getting to great ideas and interesting abstracts. And more. We’ll talk.

Click on any title to reveal details.

Schedule

We’ll run from 13:30 - 16:30 with breaks. We’ll pick content from these exercises, and do them roughly in this order.

• Making your key content even more memorable
• Visualising your talk structure
• Share your preparation checklist
• Hear My Talk
• Polish your presentation
• Dealing with the Q&A.
• What to follow up after a talk

Afternoon

Making your key content even more memorable

During the workshop, we will work together to:

• Individually identify our key content – then do a 30-second pitch to the group. Will you primarily inform, inspire, entertain, persuade, give an experience – or something else?
• Consider all the ways we’re putting that message across. Consider when in our talks we’re setting out that message, what suport for each occasion.
• Consider your audience – who will use your message, and what emotional reaction do you hope they might.
• Consider different media – statement, picture, story, slogan, joke, example, counter-example, logical argument, sincere appeal, warning, vision.
• Sloganise one core message - short phrase using alliteration and rhymes.
• Exchange slogans

Visualising your talk structure

45 minute group session.

• Brief introduction to circle map, storyboard, (proportional) timeline
• Roundtable: how have you structured your talk
• Summarise some structures: Story / Problem – Solution / 10 points / points and expansion / exercises
• Sketch your talk. What text. What timings? What connections
• Map your talk over time. Perhaps intense – relaxed, theory – practice, problem – solution, different stories, where the light bits are. How does your structure serve your message?

Share your preparation checklist

What do you do to prepare?

Build your own checklist to share – or have a look at our gallery, and change it.

We’ll put checklists and sources on github at the end of the day.

Hear My Talk

Process

This exercise gives you instant, real feedback on your delivery and content

We’ll need 2-4 speakers who are prepared to do very condensed talks and to get feedback. If you’re up for it, you’ll do the same very short talk, 3 times. We will record your talk on your own phone.

First time – 3 minutes. You go away, watch the talk, make changes.

Second time – 3 minutes. You ask the audience for feedback.

Third time – 2 minutes Lots of applause

At the end, we have a swift go-round talking about what was great about the talks, and perhaps what became great.

Audience rules

This is not a PowerPoint karaoke bearpit. Please: * Be observant * Be fair * Be lovely

Polish your presentation

45 minute workshop

• reflection: why doe you want to polish your talk?
• reflection: what needs polish – suggestions: rhythm and structure, humour, slides, supporting material, demos, flow / transitions between topics, start, conclusion, exercises
• consider the purpose of your polish for your audience
• talk round – what are you going to polish, and do you want to pair up
• work
• round the table on the poish that has been acheived

Dealing with Q&A

Workshop your nightmare questions with us. We’ll help you to find great answers!

Add some principles to our list.

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Here’s a list of horrible generic questions

• Why didn’t you use *technique / tool *
• Whoever says this is a terible idea
• Isn’t that whoever’s idea
• What’s the purpose - what’s it good for?
• Have you actually done this?
• Why would I believe you – what qualifies your opinion?
• Where’s the data?

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Here are some reasons to take a question later

• off-topic
• repeated
• not a question
• failure to understand each other’s context
• very long question
• can’t be answered in the available time
• needed long dialogue to understand necessary context
• exposes the questioner to ridicule

You might feel that, as the person on stage, one of your jobs is to honour the crowd – and these kinds of questions prioritise the interest of an individual.

What to Follow Up after a Talk

Browse our list of things that you might do to follow up. Add your own!

• Take contact details of anyone who talks to you after the talk.
• Offer materials for emails
• Invite people to meet you in the pub / expo / wherever to talk further
• Offer stickers with your catchy slogan, talk to people wearing your stickers
• Put your twitter handle on each slide, invite new followers, interact with any new followers over the conference.
• Initiate contact with anyone who tweets your talk.
• Invite feedback and comments.
• Make an interactive exercise and invite people to use them.
• Put materials on GitHub and invite contributions
• Set up a Slack / WhatsApp / regular Skype to take your talk further
• Give participants something they can use, offer your help as they put it into practice
• Offer to give the talk as a webinar for people’s workplaces
• Review how the delivery went
• Make a note of ideas about how it might go next time – what you’d change
• Consider how your material might work for a different audience

Build something to invite contact in one or mare ways.