Speaking at Conferences

August 9, 2013

As I’m preparing for my three presentations at Northeast PHP in Boston next weekend (August 16th-18th), I’ve been reviewing some of the resources I have regarding public speaking. I thought I’d share three great posts on speaking at conferences.

The first is from Ashe Dryden and is titled What You Need to Know About Speaking at Conferences. This is a long and detailed post, covering everything from getting started, coming up with good ideas, and writing quality abstracts, to actually creating the talk (although there’s not that much discussion on giving the talk).

The second is from the supremely talented Kate Matsudaira and is titled So you want to speak at a conference…. (I’ll forgive her the extraneous fourth period). The post has two broad subjects: getting a talk accepted and becoming a better public speaker. Both threads are full of great advice.

Finally, there’s Davey Shafik‘s article Speaking at Conferences: How to write a talk and get it accepted. His article is written from the perspective of a selection committee member for a conference. The focus in his article is naturally on how one gets a talk (or talks) accepted: what the organizers are looking for. If you’d like some insight into that side of things, this is the article for you.

If you’d like to do more public speaking yourself, read all three: you’ll be glad you did. And if you’re presenting at, or just attending, Northeast PHP next week, I’ll look forward to seeing you there!