I’d attended web design and development conferences for years. I got used to sitting in the audience, comfortably facing the stage. Then everything was reversed.

Several months ago I was invited to speak about skeuomorphic interface design at a conference in Seattle. You don’t say no to invitations to speak at conferences in your field of work, so I accepted and agreed to present. After all, I’d been thinking about the topic enough to write about it and had plenty of time to prepare to present it. I thought it was going to be easy.

Only it wasn’t.

A few weeks after I committed, I paused and thought: How do I fill a 55 minute session with relevent, valuable information and not bore my audience? The TED conferences, known for some of the most captivating talks in the world on a range of fascinating topics, are only 18 minutes for a reason. How was I going to expand a short essay into nearly an hour long talk?

Another, more visceral concern was developing as well: How on earth was I going to speak at a conference without looking like the total rookie I was? I’d never done anything close to this. When it comes to conferences, I’m always on the audience side of the stage. The thought of being mic’d up and in charge of an hour of people’s time stirred up enough anxiety that I began to wonder if I could really pull this off.

I had two hurdles to clear:

• Expanding a short essay into something worthy of a conference talk
• Overcoming public speaking jitters

Clearly I needed some sort of focused approach. To meet those challenges I needed quality content, and to gain confidence so I could deliver it well.

The Kitchen Sink

The material and format of my essay wasn’t intended for a live audience, so using it as a baseline structure wasn’t going to work. I needed to start over.

This is when I decided to give Evernote another go. I had used it briefly when it launched, but it failed to stick with me. By now the product had improved and suited my needs. Evernote gave me a mechanism to capture and store ideas before they had a chance to escape me. I took screen shots from my devices and emailed them to my Evernote account, which routed them to a notebook I had created to curate everything realted to my talk. I did the same with any articles, stories, news, quotes, and images related to what I was talking about. Sometimes I’d even store a quick voice recording if I thought of something potentially useful.

Over time I had amassed a mountain of material. Some of it was crappy, but some of it was really good. Nancy Duarte describes the process of collecting ideas as “everything and the kitchen sink.” Evernote is a tremendous capturing tool for a huge pile of ideas — the ultimate kitchen sink.

At this point I could tag items, clustering them into messages and stories that supported my overall Big Idea.

Boot Camp

I had no public speaking experience whatsoever. I knew this had to be confronted. The first thing I did was read Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker. Scott speaks for a living. Even though I wasn’t trying to be a Scott Berkun or a Jared Spool, it was a quick read that gave me some insights on what it’s like to be in their world. Among a lot of great takeaways from his book was to simply give a talk that you yourself would want to listen to. Other books I found incredibly helpful were Resonate by Nancy Duarte, and In the Spotlight by Janet Esposito.

But reading books is something you do on the couch in the comfort of your home or on the train ride to the office. I wasn’t going to gain any confidence that way. So I did something I had meant to do for years. I started going to Toastmasters meetings and actively participating in them. I also attended Janet Esposito’s two day workshop for people who struggle with public speaking.

I was slowly gaining confidence, but I had accrued only about an hour of total ‘stage time’ over the course of a few months. I still faced a big leap from five minute microspeeches in front of a small group to a presentation ten times that length in front of a larger, paying audience.

The Talk

I had practiced my talk about five times before I arrived at the conference. My Keynote files were stored in three locations. I even brought extra batteries for my wireless slide controller. I was as prepared as I was going to be.

Speaking on the second day of a two day conference gave me an opportunity to attend some sessions and meet other speakers and attendees. It was also helpful in gaining an idea of what to expect. How big was the room I was assigned to? How many people are attending? How are the stage and screen arranged? What are the acoustics and lighting like? I made some tweaks based on the first day of talks, something I wouldn’t have had time to do if I was near the top of the batting order.

The talk itself went as well as I could have asked for. When audience members line up at the mic to ask questions, it’s a sign you’ve done something right (or horribly wrong I suppose). There are a few compliments I’ve been fortunate to get over the years that I recall vividly. The last one came from someone in my audience that day. He said “Usually I can check email or get some things done during these sessions, but I couldn’t stop paying attention.”

Keeping people engaged over 50 minutes was a challenge I was almost sure I couldn’t meet a few months ago. His words really made me feel like the outcome was worth the preparations.

Tips from a rookie

Of course I’m no Scott Berkun, but I’ll leave you with a few things that helped me pretend to be.

• Practicing is awkward, but do it. Tape yourself, then sit through your own talk. You’ll know if it’s boring. More importantly, you’ll know what needs fixing.
• On the morning of your talk, don’t rehearse it again. Instead, hit the gym. Go for a run. Something. You’ll be more relaxed and focused when it’s time to present.
• Join Toastmasters. If not for public speaking reasons, do it for your own personal growth.
• Get yourself a copy of Nancy Duarte’s Resonate. It’s packed with tons of valuable techniques.
• Take a firm position on the subject and sell it. Evidence and data are important, but can get a bit boring. Sprinkle in a story or two.
• “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Some inventor said that. It’s true.