Lightning Talks
Your talk:
You should create a talk that lasts for at most 5 minutes. You can project from your laptop if you feel it would benefit your talk, but it’s definitely not a requirement. There should be some sort of whiteboard in the room that you can use. A hint or two for a successful lightning talk: Don’t try to cover too much! Consider highlighting a just single idea, or perhaps one or two favorite techniques. Keep the scope small and tightly focused so what you do cover is enough to communicate something. You don’t have to fully teach something, in a lightning talk, it’s enough to give the listeners a taste so they might be inspired to find out more on their own. It’s okay to give a lightning talk if you have never presented before - you have something to say, and we’d love to hear it!
How the session will work:
At the beginning of the session, we will check to make sure everyone who said they would give a talk is present, and if it looks like there will be any leftover presenting spots, see if anyone else wants to present. At that time, we’ll finalize and write down the talk order so presenters can get ready before their talk.
If you’re using the projector, plan to head up to the front one talk before yours. We hope to have two projectors in the room so you can work on setting up while the prior talk is going on. That way we can keep the downtime between talks to a minimum.
We will have a timer of some kind to keep everyone honest with the length of their talks, and we’ll make sure you know how much time you have left. We’re not going to yank you off by the collar mid-word, but if your time is up, finish up as soon as possible so we have enough time for everyone.
If you’re using the projector, plan to head up to the front one talk before yours. We hope to have two projectors in the room so you can work on setting up while the prior talk is going on. That way we can keep the downtime between talks to a minimum.
We will have a timer of some kind to keep everyone honest with the length of their talks, and we’ll make sure you know how much time you have left. We’re not going to yank you off by the collar mid-word, but if your time is up, finish up as soon as possible so we have enough time for everyone.
How to submit a talk:
On the day of the conference, we’ll have a board where you can sign up to give a lightning talk, or talks. You can sign up for multiple lightning talks, but if we have too many talks, we’ll move to one talk per person to give everyone a chance. The board will be up in the morning somewhere prominent when the conference first starts, and the lightning talks will be the last session(s) of the day.
Questions:
You can contact Anne Epstein on twitter at @ajepst if you have any questions on the above or would like to help.
