Tech talks exist in nearly every company. The effectiveness varies from person to person and team to team. In some teams, tech talks gradually become a useless time killer due to various reasons.

This article aims to improve the baseline of tech talks through some fundamental rules, starting from topic selection and other aspects, striving to help 80% of people deliver a tech talk that scores above 80 points.

Topic Selection

Basic Principles

First, you need to understand that in-person tech talks are not the only way to share knowledge. Other forms include writing blog posts and articles, making videos, or simply sharing a sentence or two — all are common sharing formats. For different types of knowledge, you should consider which format is more appropriate.

For example, for an introductory introduction to a new technology, writing an article is recommended. Readers can quickly scan or search for key information, which is much more efficient than sitting down to listen to a presentation.

Generally speaking, good topics should have strong practical value, be able to attract the audience, and have an appropriate level of difficulty. They should strike a balance between being understandable and providing new insights for the audience.

Here are some examples of good topics and some things to keep in mind:

  • For introducing new technologies, you need to clearly explain the background of why the new technology was created, what problems it solves, its advantages and disadvantages compared to previous similar solutions, and what new problems it introduces, etc.
  • For explaining obscure or difficult technologies, the topic scope can be smaller. You need solid presentation skills based on a thorough understanding of the problem to ensure everyone can follow along.
  • In-depth technical discussions on specific details are similar to the previous category — pay attention to background introduction.
  • For high-level summaries of a category of problems, such as cache consistency, distributed IDs, distributed transactions, etc., these topics can start from real existing problems, analyze the pros and cons of different solutions, and discuss the evolution of technical approaches.
  • Business-oriented talks are best when choosing common business domains, and pay attention to background introduction.

Content Preparation

For talk effectiveness, while it will be influenced by various factors, the most important thing at its core is whether the content has enough substance.

To have substance, the best approach is consistent daily accumulation. I recommend thinking more in your daily work and building deeper understanding of the things you use. I recommend reading the book “How to Take Smart Notes” — you need continuous input in daily life to produce output.

Additionally:

During preparation, think and summarize to form your own viewpoints. Simply rehashing others’ material actually wastes your own time.

Try to incorporate real application scenarios into your talk content.

For difficult knowledge points, pay attention to presentation skills to make sure the audience can understand. Consider doing a dry run with one or two colleagues first on the key parts of your talk.

Watching videos can help you not only learn the content itself but also see how others present, which is quite helpful for improving your talk’s effectiveness.

Beyond the actual content, I recommend preparing the following:

Pre-study materials. You can prepare materials in advance that help understand the talk content, such as certain chapters from a book or specific articles, and ask everyone to read them beforehand. The speaker needs to provide estimated reading time for each material — the total reading time for a single talk should not exceed one hour.

Detailed explanation of background, especially when business knowledge or uncommon scenarios are involved.

Talk Process

After preparing the talk content, you need to find someone to review it. The reviewer can be your mentor, leader, or someone else very familiar with the relevant field.

The reviewer, based on a thorough understanding of the talk content, mainly reviews the topic selection and content to ensure they meet the requirements listed in this article. They should also try to ensure the content doesn’t contain technical errors.

The talk materials must be sent out in advance to give the audience a chance to familiarize themselves with them.

During the talk, pay attention to pacing — don’t speak too fast.

Original article: http://lichuanyang.top/posts/54216/

Source: https://lichuanyang.top/en/posts/54216/