Presentation Guidelines and Pretending To Be On Your Phone While On Your Phone
Hey friends,
Nature is crazy, y'all. We had golf ball-sized hailstones last night — it sounded like a whole flock of birds just jumped on our house when it first started! Now it's just my car that looks like a golf ball... 😬
Thinking Too Hard 🤔
I'm cleaning up my presentation for Frontrunners, and I thought I'd share this list of presentation guidelines I've collected along the way. I have split it into DO's and DO NOT's.
When presenting, DO:
- Show don't tell. This translates to visuals as well, not just your content.
- Tell stories. The more embarrassing the better.
- Humor makes things memorable. If you can make something weird happen, you'll grab attention. (But don't force it).
- Energy is contagious. If you're excited, it will translate. If you're flat, it will steal energy from whatever you're saying.
- Do your homework. Be crazy prepared.
When presenting, DO NOT:
- Explain the obvious. If the audience can see it right in front of them don't over-explain.
- Present things that are unreadable. ("Can you see this in the back?")
- Fill the silences.
- Pre-apologize. ("I whipped this up last night...")
- Go last in the presentation order. (Although you can't always control this one).
None of these are revolutionary, but they help remind me of things to shoot for each time I put a presentation together.
What are some things you aim for with a presentation? I'd love to hear it!
Interesting Web Bits 🍿
Web Dev Stuff:
- The folks at ByteDance (TikTok) have released a competitor to React Native with Lynx, not to be confused with Lynx, the text-only browser ... 😏
- That feeling when you look away for a little bit only to find that JS framework is now something else...
- Geoff Huntley thinks students are screwed unless they take action with AI. I'm still forming my opinions on how this all shakes out.
- The TypeScript team is writing a Go port for 10x speed gains
- An exploration of what makes code hard to read.
- Amelia Wattenberger uses a gorgeous piece to think about what it would be like if our interfaces involved more of our senses.
Other stuff:
- What if comfort is our enemy, and we actually need growth and proof of work to thrive?
- It is as if you're on your phone... Except you're not on your phone while being on your ... phone? (Check it out on your phone, it'll make more sense later).
- Tom Usher urges you to kill your feeds saying that algorithms are breaking how we think. I mostly agree, but I took the red pill a few years ago and quietly slid off most social media — and I can say it's just fine out here.
- Someone built a mechanical calculator ... you know ... for funsies.
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