Presenting
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Conferences
The good news is that this is true - you can do that. The bad news: it's not easy.
Do not give up. Start with local community events. They're easier to get to than major conferences and you'll get your first experiences as a public speaker in a more comfortable setting.
Write a successful conference proposal.
Reach out to your friends and/or colleagues for feedback.
Idea. think about a single idea, thought, sentence you want your listeners to take away from the talk. Try describe your own talk in 5 words or less.
Prepare your slides. People can either listen to you or read your slides. They won't do both.
If you're going to have code on your slides, make sure it's the least amount of code necessary to convey the same meaning.
Slides are not there to contain the content of your talk either.
Use contrasting colors, make sure that people in the back can see your content.
Having 100 slides is much better than having 10. If you want to show a couple of bullet points (for example - when listing features of the brand new framework you've created) show them one by one.
Make sure to have your social media handle on every slide (not only on the first one). Putting it in the bottom left/right corner is usually a good practice.
If you can do comedy well, throwing a couple of jokes is going to make your talk more enjoyable to the audience.
But for the love of all that is holy - don't try to make your talk funny by throwing a bucket of GIFs at it. It never works.
DEMO
Practice a lot, and then some. Doing live demos is a different game than going through slides and you need to be prepared.
Make sure that your demo works online, offline, upside down, underwater and in IE3. I'm only half joking. Do not assume that you will have Internet connection on stage. Localhost is like your childhood dog, it'll always be there for you.
Have backups. If your demo breaks on stage, revert to showing the video of the same thing in action. Shit happens, but a smooth recovery can save the talk.
Practice
Seriously, practice. A lot. Out loud.
A common mistake people make is going through the talk only in their head. I hate to break it down to you, but your inner voice is much more articulated than you are. This is extra true if you're not giving the talk in your native language.
Buy a cheap clicker (you know, the slide switcher thingy), connect your laptop to a TV (optional), stand up (not optional) and practice out loud.
If you screw something up, do not stop. You won't get to repeat the whole talk on stage so having those prep sessions at home will make you well prepared to any mishap that might happen on stage.
After you did that a couple of times and you feel prepared, ask someone to be your audience and make sure that they give you feedback. Do not take "it went really well, nothing to add" as an answer. They're trying to be nice, there's always something to improve. If you feel comfortable with that, record the talk yourself and be your own audience.
You belong there
Once you get accepted to speak at a conference, seeing your name next to all those superstars might make you anxious. Weird thoughts may appear in your head.
Those people are industry veterans, and I'm an impostor. I don't want to do that anymore.
Don't listen to that voice. If your talk piqued the interest of the conference organisers - you belong there. I am personally yet to meet an asshole conference speaker and during the speakers' dinner and other activities you're quite likely to feel welcome and accepted.
If you'd like to be on stage - you deserve that.
What others think about it: https://dev.to/emmawedekind/tips-for-first-time-speakers-3fcb
Tips
Begin every talk with a brief overview of what attendees can expect to learn. Mention what level the talk is geared at. And maybe even give them an out! At a multitrack conference, there are lots of options, it'd be a shame to have an unhappy audience member.
Ask the audience questions! "Give me a variable name?", "What color theme should I use?"
Live coding with tools like quokka.js in VS Code or CodeSandbox.
Put your twitter handle or name on every single slide.
The audience is rooting for you. People come to conferences and attend your talk with the hope of getting value for their time. But that's what is important to remember. They WANT to have chosen a good talk. They WANT you to succeed!
I often don't like to make the entire audience stay and listen to questions. I invite those that have them to come up and ask me individually. It's pretty informal so others that are curious can listen in. This has the added benefit of cutting down on questions that are really just comments. Those tend to serve no one but the asker.
More to it:
https://dev.to/laurieontech/confessions-of-a-conference-speaker-4789
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