What I learnt about presenting from my first day at Web Summit
Or: How I learnt to stop worrying and to probably just get up and talk*
It can get pretty dull reading synopses of presentations another person went to at an event; it’s the conference version of having to sit through the photos of a holiday you weren’t on; so I’m not doing that.
Instead, this short post is about an idea for a presentation and things I will and won’t do having seen some people today who are at the peak of their presenting game (presumably).
Some things to do:
Be relaxed and human
I came away from seeing Paddy Cosgrave (Web Summit), Cal Henderson (Slack) and Marcello Pascoa (Burger King) do talks feeling like I got a taste of their personalities. They told a story and I liked it. I’ll need to force my nerves down to allow that to happen, but it made all the difference.
Be enthusiastic
And not in a fake way. If I’m doing a talk, I’ll need to really care about the thing I’m talking about. It was clear who was enthused by new ideas and by their own work, and who was just regurgitating stats.
Tell me something I don’t know
The best talks today had nuggets of gold in them that I wouldn’t have known had I not seen them. I learnt from the horse’s mouth about Solid, Tim Berners-Lee’s new project.
I had read all the news around Christopher Wylie and had a good understanding of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but I found out more today.
I did not know that Slack was built to allow remote developers to communicate while building a game, the game flopped but Slack did not.
Get into the practical
I went to a talk on customer experience, something I know quite a bit about, and was disappointed that at no point did I get to find out how a revolutionary customer experience was delivered, we only heard what that customer experience was. I wanted tips and nitty gritty stuff: How do I replicate this where I work? What does it take to achieve this great result? How do I hire the right people?
In my (currently imaginary) talk on customer experience, it’ll be all killer no filler…more on that in a few paragraphs.
And some I won’t
Be unaware of the volume of my microphone (if I’ve the luxury of having one)
One talk was so loud that I found it difficult to concentrate on what they were saying as I was being shouted at from a podium.
Use gender pronouns in my talk unless referring to a real person
I’m pleased that people are not just defaulting to ‘he’ and ‘him’ for their imaginary third person when presenting, but it feels kind of creepy and maybe a bit calculated to then always use ‘she’ and ‘her’ instead, like proof that you’ve suddenly discovered other people exist. Why not use ‘they’? As in “Your customer contacts you and they have had a bad experience, what is the best thing to do about it?” This is not a weird sentence and nobody is left feeling either excluded, or ikky, or creeped out.
Get suckered into an unusual cadence and lingo
“Ok. Hi guys. My name is Louise,” clasps hands earnestly, planned pause “and what I’d like to talk to you about today is our Hackrr app which is designed to illuminate the consumer journey. This showcases the true methodology and ideation of our innovative company,” gestures at screen with stock image of a person on a phone.
Agh. Please speak human to me, fellow human.
Sell Moar Stuff
This is The Worst. I did see some pitches today and, I know they were meant to be pitching, but surely it’s better to draw people into your story to get people hooked? And if you have to bring someone else on stage to woodenly endorse you. Oh no. Oh no no no no.
I want to remember when I do a talk that I am supposed to be entertaining and interesting and maybe saying something new. Not to be getting all the cashmoney thrown at me as I saunter offstage to rapturous awkwardness.
An idea for a talk
After the customer experience talk today I was hit slowly with an idea, like a low-flying egg.
What do I know about? Delivering for and supporting customers
What else do I know about? Hiring really great customer-facing people
What else? How hard it is to do a customer-facing job well and what it practically and emotionally takes to do it.
I’m going to work on this until it becomes a fully formed idea, like a low-flying egg which can be caught and turned into an omelette.
*Y’know, I know the Dr Strangelove thing has been done to death. But I still like it.
