Lightning talks

"Remember, you're talking to an intelligent crowd here who can normally move from A to B without having to be handled through each and every step."

"One of the biggest mistakes people make about the details is misunderstanding that just because they've put something on the slides it means that they have to explain it."

"When it comes down to it there's only one way to make sure that your talk will fit in the time-slot, and that's to practice it. Read it out aloud several times. Present it to the cat. Try to convince your colleague/flatmate/significant other to listen to it."

"Preparation is everything."

"Set up and load all the apps you're going to use first — no one wants to be caught on stage in an awkward silence with nothing to say while they wait the 20 seconds it takes Mozilla to load. While you're at it don't forget to close down instant-messenger clients, calendaring apps, and anything else that might randomly pop up dialogs when you're trying to speak."

"During a lightning talk it's vital that you keep your rapport with the audience, rather than diverting your attention to the computer every slide change. Unlike a 40-minute talk, you don't have time to take breaks between slides."

"Even when you take every precaution, you'll still encounter unexpected problems. Your demo won't work. You'll discover you're using a slightly older version of the slides. Your software will use the wrong font. The computer will burst into flames and burn down the venue. Remember that you don't have time to recover from any of these problems. Even if it takes you 30 seconds to locate a new version of the slides and remember where you were, that's a tenth of your talk gone. More importantly, the audience has lost interest while you're doing this and has slipped into their daydream world where you'll have to work really hard to reacquire their attention."

At http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/07/30/lightningtalk.html.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Talk.