Tech and Data Public Speaking Tips, 2025 Edition
Joe's Nerdy Rants #69 - Weekend reads, podcasts, and other stuff
My good friend Jordan Morrow is a popular author and public speaker who talks on data-related topics worldwide. By pure coincidence, he posted about public speaking earlier this week, so yesterday we decided to meet at my home before our regularly scheduled lunch meeting to record a podcast about public speaking. Listen to it in the recording above, or your favorite podcast platform.
Many people have asked me how to get into public speaking. Last Fall, I wrote “So You Want to be a Speaker?” where I discussed some logistics for giving talks. However, I glossed over actionable advice for people interested in starting their speaking journey.
First, public speaking mortifies most people. Don’t feel discouraged or a lesser person if this scares you. By most accounts, people would rather die than speak in public. The fear is real. For one reason or another, most people who tell me they’re interested in public speaking give up on their pursuit. I think a combination of fear and preparation puts people off.
I’ve got no problem speaking in public. That’s probably not you. My public speaking started in high school, where I was on the speech and debate team. I practiced a LOT. Not all schools offer speech clubs. But if you’re a younger reader interested in public speaking, these clubs are the best training.
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was being overly self-conscious about trivial things. Whether it’s the chance that someone might rip my talk to shreds, my mannerisms, or whatever, it’s easy to be insecure to the point where you over-amplify them in your mind. Largely, people don’t care about the things you’re worried about. Becoming a good speaker is as much about effective communication as is putting on the blinders to negative self-talk. You need to develop the confidence to be at peace with yourself before, during, and after your talk.
Start at Home
How do you get confidence? You need to talk a lot. I know this sounds naively simple, but this is about intentional talking, not just rambling like a crazy person (you can do that too I suppose). Most public speaking advice focuses on giving talks at meetings and conferences. I’ll get to these, but you can also do some lightweight things in a much smaller setting that will help you build confidence in your speaking ability.
First, you can talk to yourself. Seriously, this is a great way to get used to hearing yourself. Many people say they can’t stand how their voice sounds. You need to get over this. If you have a topic in mind, record yourself (video or audio) talking about it. Review the recording, make notes, and work on your tone, cadence, and delivery.
Second, get on podcasts. Or host a podcast. Most podcasts are public conversations. The conversational aspect is much more relaxed than getting up on stage. This will help you calm your nerves about speaking in public, while letting you develop your voice.
Third, give a presentation at a virtual meetup or webinar. You’ll get more practice delivering a talk while being in a familiar environment (usually your home). I often suggest this as the training wheels before giving a live talk, as you work out the bugs of your presentation in a relatively harmless setting.
These suggestions do not follow a linear flow. Feel free to skip some of them, too. But I mention them because you can do them from the comfort of your own home. Be sure to track your progress, maybe keeping a “speaking diary” to track your mood and other factors affecting your confidence and delivery.
Your First Live Audience
Once you’re (somewhat) confident, now’s the time to talk in front of a live audience. Start small. Thankfully there are a few established options. I’m guessing you’re in tech if you’re reading my newsletter. Local tech and data meetups are a great place to get started with speaking in front of an audience. I’ve hosted meetups, and I can say that organizers are always looking for new speakers. Attend a local meetup in your area if they’re available, and read the room. If it seems like a cool group, ask if they’re looking for speakers. You can start with a lightning talk, usually 10-15 minutes. Or, if you’re up for it, give the main presentation.
You can also join a public speaking club, such as Toastmasters. This group is dedicated to helping people become comfortable with public speaking. I haven’t done Toastmasters, but I’ve heard great things about it. Check it out if there’s a group in your local area.
Should you hire a speaking coach? Again, I haven’t tried this, but I think the answer depends on what you’re trying to improve. A speaking coach might be great if you’re trying to improve certain aspects of your speaking. But I’ve also seen speaking coaches mold the speaker into a caricature of “other” speakers. I think the best speakers are authentic and quirky. If your speaking coach tries to transform you into something you’re not, that’s a disservice to you and the audience.
Next are conferences. Don’t expect to give the main keynote. These are reserved for experienced speakers who can either kick off the event or close it properly. The keynote speaker is hired to deliver a great talk that captivates the audience. The speaker’s name should also draw a crowd. Giving the main keynote and having a name big enough to draw a crowd takes time. Be patient.
Instead, submit your talk to a conference’s Call for Papers (CFP). Plenty of resources are available online on how to craft the right CFP. If you’re accepted, the conference organizer will slot you in to the conference schedule, give you your time slot, and arrange travel if applicable. The conference wants your talk to succeed, so take advantage if they provide speaking coaching or assistance.
You need to practice a lot, especially when you’re new to public speaking. Before you give your talk, practice it. Go over the flow. Practice it at a local meetup. Get comfortable with your talk, and most importantly, with yourself. When you give your talk, you might find yourself talking fast. That’s the nerves kicking in. Talk slower than feels natural. Stay calm. You know your material. Just move from one point to the next. The sight of the crowd might terrify you. You need to focus on your talk. Easier said than done, but it gets more routine over time.
These days, your biggest competition is someone who loses attention during your talk and scrolls through their phone. If you see this, take it as a cue to work on your stage presence and delivery. Your content might also be to blame, but I see stage presence and delivery as the bigger culprits in the audience's loss of attention. Don’t take it personally. Use the feedback to improve your next talk.
Should You Use Slides?
There’s debate about whether you should use slides in your talk. Not everyone will agree with me, but I suggest avoiding slides when you’re starting out. Unless the slides contain information critical to your presentation and the audience benefits from visual cues, slides are distracting at best and a crutch at worst. You need to get comfortable with speaking, not juggling slides. All too often, new speakers just read from the slides. Don’t bore your audience. Learn to communicate effectively. Then include slides as they suit your presentation. But don’t make the slides the presentation. People don’t attend talks to stare at PowerPoints. The talk should be between you and your audience.
If you need to use slides, keep them to a minimum count and content. The rookie mistake is creating too many slides for a presentation, with each slide crammed with lots of words and figures. If you look at my presentations where I use slides, the use of words is minimal. The words help keep the audience focused on what I’m talking about. They’re not there for the audience to read a brochure while trying to listen to your talk. You do the audience no favors by having overly complicated and verbose slides. Keep it simple.
How I Give Talks
How I prep for and deliver talks differs from what I suggest. Because I’m constantly writing and speaking on topics, ideas are always ready to go. I can easily improvise a keynote talk with a pen and paper, just jotting out a few main ideas. I use slides sparingly, if at all. Lately, I’ve been giving my talks without slides. Going slideless is a lot of fun because it frees me and the audience from the distraction of plastering words and visuals on a screen. I just have a few notes on paper or my phone to reference. But I’ve also given countless talks, and public speaking is second nature at this point. For panels, I don’t want to know the topics questions ahead of time. My feeling is panels should be a natural and spontaneous conversation with people. Any attempt to constrain this loses the joy of a good conversation. The audience will notice whether the discussion is real or fake. This is just a point of reference, and I do not suggest this if you’re starting out.
Good luck on your public speaking journey. It’s a lot of fun once you get the hang of it, and it can help your career in the long run.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Joe
Cool Weekend Reads & Listens
GeoCities in 1995: Building a Home Page on the Internet | Cybercultural
Russia Trots Out Its Newest Weapons in Ukraine: Horses - WSJ
AI Search Has A Citation Problem - Columbia Journalism Review
America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1 – SemiAnalysis
Seed-Strapping: The New Playbook for Building Profitable AI Companies in 2024
Revisiting Competitive Moats - by Kyle Harrison
AI IDEs Need Moats - by Chris - Materialized View
A Data Value Manifesto – TDAN.com
The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions
Podcast
Freestyle Fridays - Public Speaking Tips w/ Jordan Morrow (Spotify)
Simon Späti - The Art of Writing about Data Engineering (Spotify)
Todd Beauchene - The Early Days at Snowflake, Modern Data Platforms, and More (Spotify)
Freestyle Friday - How I Use AI for Writing (Spotify)
Matthew Kelliher-Gibson - The Data Cynic (Spotify)
Carly Taylor - The True Cost of Replacing Engineers with AI (Spotify)
Freestyle Friday - The Cult of Scrum (Spotify)
John Thompson - The Path to AGI, Writing Books, and More (Spotify, YouTube)
Freestyle Friday - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch of AI Data Slop (Spotify)
Eric Broda - AI Agent Ecoysystems, the Death of Consulting, and More (Spotify, YouTube)
Hugo Bowne-Anderson - Exploring the Future of AI and Automation (Spotify, YouTube)
Ghalib Suleiman & Kevin Connolly - Data Team "What Ifs" (Spotify, YouTube)
Anne-Claire Baschet & Yoann Benoit - Unifying AI and Product Development - (Spotify, YouTube)
David Jayatillake - Semantic Layers, Proving Value in Data Work, and More - (Spotify, YouTube)
Freestyle Fridays - Old School vs New School Data Modeling (Spotify)
Way more episodes over at the Joe Reis Show, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It will soon be available on YouTube.
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RE: this quote on scripted panel discussions, "The audience will notice whether the discussion is real or fake" - can confirm, I've been one of those audience members, and can definitely tell when it's fake. It's like when you watch reality TV and it's in that uncanny valley of spontaneity or scripted-ness. People can tell.
Great point about not reading from the slides. A mistake I made in the beginning and have seen other people make.