A session I delivered as part of a Meetup about how to become a tech speaker

1. Becoming a Tech
Speaker
Gil Fink
CEO and Senior Consultant, sparXys
@gilfink

2. About Me
• sparXys CEO and senior consultant
• Google Web Technologies GDE & Microsoft MVP
• ReactNext and AngularUP co-organizer

3. Make the decision!

4. My Story

7. What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM)
• Helping other developers to learn!
• Travel to many places (also in Israel ☺)
• Meet a lot of people (attendees and speakers)
• Speaker activities and special SWAG
• Adrenaline rush ☺
• And in the end…

9. Name Recognition

10. Name Recognition – Building Your
Brand
• Open a Blog
• Help in open source projects
• Write articles
• Answer questions in forums such as Stack Overflow
• Write a book
• Be active in tech social media (Facebook groups, Twitter and
etc.)
• Once there are references to things you’ve done, it’s easier
to persuade organizers to give you a speaker shot

12. Find Your Niche
• It isn’t enough to be knowledgeable
• You must dig in and be an expert to get recognition
• For example:
knowing Angular doesn’t mean that you know how
to create/explain how Angular Animation work

13. Were to Gain Experience?
Conferences

14. Creating a Session
SESSION
• Be focused
• Find your WIIFM and
build the session around
it
• Be precise
• Don’t take any
assumptions about
• The crowd
• The organizers
• Anything
DEMO
• Short and simple
• Use coding conventions
and standards
• Use prepared demos at
first
• After you master that,
strive for live coding

15. Preparing for a Session

16. Preparing for a Session
• Practice, practice, practice!
• Story time (Bank Hapoalim)
• Make a check list to prepare before you start a
session
• Put notes in hard slides (if needed)
• Assume the worst and hope for the best

17. Summary
• Being a tech speaker is very challenging
• Start slow and then increase your speed
• Name recognition is the key
• Being an expert is your tool

18. Thank You!