Dave Stokes shares insights on improving presentation skills for open source professionals, emphasizing the importance of starting small with local talks and practicing thoroughly. Key advice includes engaging the audience, being mindful of visuals, and preparing for unexpected challenges during live demonstrations. The presentation concludes with a reminder that the audience wants the speaker to succeed and to seek opportunities for further engagement in public speaking.

1. Presentation Skills for
Open Source Folks
1

2. Dave Stokes
MySQL Community Manager --
speak 25-40 times a year
30 Some Years of speaking at
computer conferences, user
groups, Meetups
2

3. 3

4. Exercise #1
4

5. You can now say
you have spoken
twice at an Open
Source Software
Conference
5

6. You’re
Welcome!
6

7. So why are you NOT speaking at this
conference today!?!?!?!
7

8. Glossophobia? Sloth?
Your audience wants you to
do well!
You are speaking to peers
(usually)
Helps you sharpen your skills
Others need your input!
8

9. Humans!
We want to learn from others and their experiences even if we are autodidacts!
Voyeurism / Rubbernecking
Seek the excitement of the new
9

10. What we are going to talk
about:
-How to get started and then get better at presenting presentations for
folks in the Open Source world.
10

11. Your first talk
Local User Group / Meetup
or
Brown Bag at work
or
Uncon
----
5- 10 good minutes is great start
You do not need to have all answers!
Start small, build
(TDD)
11

12. Speaking
Skills
12

13. Things to
remember
1. Speak slower than you normally
do!
2. Enunciate
3. Make eye contact
4. Dynamics -- no monotone, no
Emo Phillips
5. Go to restroom before you start!
Spit out gum.
Have H20 ready!
13

14. Practice
At least three
times with active
listening!
14

15. Thou Shalt practice!!
15

16. Practice
Practice until you get it right,
then practice until you can not screw it
up.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor
Performance!
16

17. Slides!
17

18. Are slides necessary?
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19. Slide Software
PowerPoint
Keynote
CustomShow
Prezi
SnagIt
Google slides
Impress
PDFs
19

20. 20
Wall of test slides are very hard for most audiences to read and remember, at least half
the time, the folks in the back can not read due to font size limitations (and why do they
sit in the back when there are plenty of seats up or near the front; are they anti social or
what?) or the size of the projected image.
● Bullet points should be points and not essays, monographs, theses, dissertations or
biographies. They should be quick a summary of an idea or feature and the longer
they are the more likely it is that your audience is going to be enthralled with you
as it gets harder to read them
○ As you change to a smaller font
● Careful with color & fonts!! Some colors will not show in some room or on some
projectors with ambient light or ‘forced lighting’. It may be a graphic artists dream
hue but make sure it works.
● If you write in one presentation program and use another to present OR change
systems to present, make sure the fonts are fully loaded.
● Do not overuse transitions or animations.
● Use legible graphics and make sure all fits on your slide or lines of text will spill

21. About those graphics!! 21

22. Plan
Presentation
● What are you talking about?
○ Main points
○ Common problems
○ Where to get more info
● Plan to talk 0.66 * time_period
○ Q and A period
● Audience Level
○ SMEs versus ‘Joe off the street’
Review all these points as your write
and revise talk
22
Know your subject
Know your time
Know your audience

23. Outline Main Points
1. Subject name &
summary of what is
does
2. Features
3. Options
4. Usage
5. Reference material
1. Project X is an Open Source
project to do Y
2. Allows you to do Y with Z and W
3. Options
a. --W provides W
b. --Check-only means does
not want to pay cash
4. Common use of Project X
5. https://project-x.org
23

24. Live Demos
Do not depend on conference WiFi!
● Even if it worked five minutes
before
Consider pre recording
● It is going to work every time
KNOW the demo backwards/forwards
● Expect the unexpected
24
Are like magic tricks -- if they work
they impress the audience and if
not things can get very ugly.

25. Write the presentation
Use your outline and not wait until the night before!
25

26. Review
You need to look at presentation
with fresh eyes.
A second set of eyes can help.
1. Does presentation cover desired
scope?
2. Would your mother understand
main ideas as presented?
3. Is there tangential stuff that
could be eliminated?
4. Do you have enough time to get
through presentation?
5. Do you have enough material?
a. Keep it short and sweet
b. Add in more details/examples
26

27. What you
want in your
Open
Source Talk
● Content
○ Raw meat technical information
○ Use cases
● Clarity
○ Keep expectations as simple as possible to
convey concept
○ You can get complex after that
● Color-less
○ Give details as devoid of color as possible
● Carat
○ Does the ‘weight’ of your presentation
worth X amount of time of someone’s life?
27

28. What you don’t
want in your
Open Source
Talk
● Useless benchmarks
○ Make sure the axis are relevant
○ Unreadable tags
● Excess Marketing or Public Relations
● Slander, FUD, or Insults
● Audience insults
○ General -- You are not Don Rickles
○ Specific -- ‘All users of X are pudding
heads!’
● Excessive animations or transitions
○ Especially if they drag
28

29. Remember the
audience wants
you to succeed
You do not need to be:
● Overly polished
● The smartest person on the subject
of the presentation in the entire
world
____
○ Showing how you started and
recovered from mistakes can
inspire
29
They want you to give them
good information!

30. Stuff you need
(or need to do)
30

31. Your
Presentation
1. Spell check! Read outloud to catch grammer mistkaes
ot other problems1
2. Email yourself a copy to a public account and/or
Dropbox/Google Drive
3. Put a copy on a thumb drive (make sure you bring with
you)
4. Host at slideshare.net (or other similar)
5. Make sure Joind.in details correct, link to talk
1. Yes, I did that on porpose!
31

32. Post Slides Online
Joind.in
Promote online
32

33. Copyright
33
You may want to copyright with
copyright symbol if you are
providing proprietary information
belonging to you our you
company!
But why are you at a FOSS show?!
Or state Creative Commons License
(or similar) explicitly.
Be prepared (or encourage) content to
be appropriated

34. Equipment to
have
To make sure you can present
34

35. Get yourself a
bag or pouch
and stock with:
1. Dongles for your laptop/tablet
a. HMDI
b. VGA
c. (maybe) HMDI cable
2. Slide clicker
i. Spare batteries
3. Surge protector/Extension
cord
4. Business cards/stickers
5. Notebook and pen
35

36. Thou shalt nots
36

37. Thingsto
avoid
Chewing gum
Unzipped zippers
Nervous laughter
‘So’, ‘okay’, ‘um’ to excess
Cursing
TOOAOTPK
● The Overuse of Acronyms Only Two People
Know 37

38. Biological Stuff
1. Drain Bladder
2. Bring Water
3. (whatever else you need)
38

39. Just before
start
Arrive early
Bootup
(kill off unneeded processes,
turn off alerts, kill browser
tabs (tentacle porn))
Plug in / Test
39

40. Start
Have title slide
Intro -short sweet with contact into
Presentation
Q/A & Repeat contact info 40

41. Navy Way
Tell them what
they are about to
learn
Teach material
Summarize what
they learned
41

42. Toastmasters
42

43. Okay, you did it!
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What next?!?
● Look for other events
● Examine other topics
● Organize events!
● Self promote

44. What We Covered
Presentation Skills for Open Source Folks
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45. Q/A
david.stokes@oracle.com
@Stoker
slideshare.net/davidmstokes
Opensourcedba.wordpress.com
elephantdolphin.blogspot.com
45
The ONLY dumb question is the
one that is not asked!!