My talks are good (and suitable for a big audience)

Something that’s happened a few times over the past few months is a conference organiser, having attended my talk, coming up to me and saying something to the effect of:

Had I known you were going to give this good a talk, I’d have put you in a keynote slot.

So, dear conference organisers, in order to spare you that afterthought, please be advised that I usually give damn good talks. The kind of talk that people will say was their personal favourite of the conference, or at least one of the top three.

This wasn’t always the case, for like any craft I had to learn it, and I can look at some recordings of early talks of mine, and I cringe. I am also no stranger to nagging doubt about the relevance of my talk to the audience, setting in 24 hours prior to my cue.

But having done it for close to 20 years now, I can say with confidence that my talks are damn good.

They’re relevant, well put together, prepared starting weeks in advance, rehearsed to the max, timed to 30-second accuracy, constantly tweaked for accessibility, they use the best presentation technology available, and occasionally they even have the audience in stitches.

What’s more, I submit many of my talks to more than one conference, a few months apart. Thus, you might be able to review the full slide deck and a video of the talk at the moment it comes across your proposal review. When that happens, you can rest assured that the talk that your conference is getting will be even better than the one you are watching, because I will update it with feedback from the first talk, will have the confidence of the talk already having worked out well once, and will still rehearse it in every free hour I have in the lead-up to your conference.

Of course, if you accept my talk, I’ll be happy in any slot, because I’m always grateful for the opportunity to speak, and chances are I’ll be enjoying your conference no matter what happens. But if you’ve already decided that my talk fits your programme, and your choice is now to put me in front of a big audience or a small one, chances are that picking the former will be to your conference’s advantage.

Having concluded this flex, an acceptable degree of humility will now return to this blog.