#phpnw13

This past weekend, I traveled to Manchester, UK to phpnw13 to deliver a talk on event driven development. This is my first scheduled conference talk, and I was excited to receive so many positive reviews as well as some insightful feedback to incorporate for the next time.

As I was reviewing the feedback, there were a couple of points that really struck home for me:

Treat the slides as background, not the focus

It's very tempting as a speaker to look back at the slides. I found myself doing this probably more than I should. It's good to have great content on the slide, but as one of the delegates noted, let the slides augment what you're saying, not the other way around. You almost have to approach it as if you don't have slides and are delivering a regular speech.

Connect the dots

As a presenter on a subject, you assume the role of an expert on that subject. While the talk is being constructed, there are some details that connect certain ideas that you have to illustrate very well or you may lose the audience. You have to assume the audience is not as well versed as you are. What is thought of as a trivial detail needs to be addressed during the talk for the audience to really connect with the subject matter.

Travel Fun

Being an international traveler to these sorts of events allows for interesting happenstances. In this particular case, I didn't actually arrive, due to flight issues, until an hour and a half before I was scheduled to give my talk. By the time I reached the conference center, I had about 20-30 minutes to setup my laptop and do the talk. So lessons learned: pad the travel time.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a great experience. The PHPNW13 conference organizers were all super friendly and understanding of my situation. I met some really smart developers that gave me inspiration, which hopefully was reciprocated by me.