Lightning Talks

About

Contact: hackman

Description: Lightning Talks are 5-minute talks by *you*. Everyone can register for this until the list is full.

Content: Your talk can be about a program, a system, a technique, some hardware - or about a cool project, or some strange idea, connected to Perl. Whatever it is... be brief. Four minutes is all you get! Practice your talk to make it worth the time. And keep in mind that this is a platform to get in touch with people who are interested.

Amount: We hope to squeeze about eight to ten talks into an hour.

Contact+Feedback+Registration:

Please send your talk idea and your feedback to hackman - thanks!

Moderators: hackman

Notes

Remember:

* There is no need to fill the available time.
* There is no need for any catchy slides.
* Just be informative, be quick, be smart.
* Tell people how to get involved and how they can contact you.
* Add links to the description here in the wiki.
* Add links to your contact info (ie a phone number, and an email address).

Last slide:

* Keyword
* Title
* Name
* Contact (phone, email, IM)
* Links (project homepage)

Preparation

We don't want to lose time with connecting each and every laptop to the beamer.

The moderator should bring a laptop which is capable of reading PDF and ODP (OpenOffice) to the sessions. If you insist on using your own laptop, your talk will be scheduled to the end of the session. There will be a hard cut after 5 minutes of talk.

Hints for Bad Speakers

* Just sit somewhere in the audience.
* Wait for the moderator to call you up stage.
* Plug in your laptop and dont waste time with the setup of the mirco.
* Just speak as you always speak.
* Never mind the audience.

Hints for Good Speakers

Content

Usually the topic is some cool program or project - but it can also be a good rant.

Preparation

* Practice your talk with friends.
* Send a copy of your slides to the moderators.

At the workshop

* Be in the room there in the break before the slot.
* Meet to the moderator and mention your name and talk.
* Test your hardware with the projector.
* Take a seat in the front row.
* Find out who the person is before you.
* Get ready for your talk.
* When called, get on stage.

Talk

* Adjust the microphone.
* Speak in your native language.
* Say who you are and mention the title again.
* Avoid slides.
* Avoid fast talk. Speak clearly and loud.
* Only say the most interesting stuff.
* Say everything else on your webpage.
* When you hear the gong, say goodbye.
* Leave the stage.

After the talk

* Be prepared to meet interested people.
* Give them a business card or a handout.
* Get back to them during the workshop.
* Send them an email after workshop.

Check your Hardware

Do not waste time with the setup! Study how the VGA of your Laptop works. Especially if you have installed Linux only to show off during the Workshop. Test your hardware with the laptop before the show starts. The short periods during the Lightning Talks prohibit that you invest 5 minutes to the settings of your graphics card (That's generally a good idea for all speakers). Anyone whose setup does not work will be asked to go off stage and try again at the next slot. Some people need an adapter, e.g. Macbook MiniVGA to VGA adapter! Hopefully someone will bring one... If in doubt - bring your own!

There will be only VGA inputs available for the video projectors (a.k.a. beamers). If you need to feed in some other type of signal (e.g. from a camera-to show small things (CVBS,S-video), an ultra new laptop which has only HDMI, some weird gaming console that you will crack (YUV), or whatever) bring a device which can really *convert* these signals. Simple passive adapters mostly do not work (e.g. there are adapters from HDMI to DVI and from DVI to VGA, but with them you will *never* be able to convert a HDMI signal into VGA, without a real converter). So - if you need any then bring your own!

Practice!

Practice your talk. Know your words. Time your speech. Do not waste time on deviation, hesitation, or repetition.

Presentation

Adjust the microphone. Make sure your voice can be heard. Speak in your mother language. Do not waste time stuttering in English when you are quite familiar with Bulgarian. Whatever the topic - dive right in, and make it count! One "word" of introduction should suffice, and then give us as many info as you can within the available time as possible. Expect the audience to look up references themselves.

Remember: This is not a lecture where you should define and explain all words you use - this is a lightning talk!

End

When your hear the buzzer/gong finish it immediately, i.e. say "thanks for listening to my talk about $FOO. the website is $URL, and contact me on number/email". Please be fair about the to those talking after you - and just leave the stage.

Links

Enter *one* link to your own page on the matter. Add your slides and more info and link to that page.

Moderators

Being a moderator is a stressy job. Two moderators are better than one. Changing microphones between people costs too much time. So everyone involved should have a microphone - the speakers, and both of the two moderators. As you will most probably be dealing with a laptop, you should have your hands free; use headsets! Bring some DVI/VGA adaptors - speakers usually forget them. Bring a buzzer/gong, too. Shove boring speakers off stage.

Slots

The slots after a break are much referred because you get a chance to test your setup during the break. Moderators should make sure the audio and video angels are present in those breaks to help testing the setup. Be sure to get a (nick)name and a phone number, too.

Last modified: 12/12/09 06:58 by Marian Marinov (‎HackMan‎)

Home | Edit this page | Recent changes | History