A BSides London “Rookie Track” mentee offers tips and personal insight from his first talk.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working towards delivering a presentation at the BSides London rookie track, one which I’m now expanding into a longer talk for an OWASP Chapter Meeting being held in Dublin later this month. I don’t think anyone’s going to try tell you that speaking is not a nerve-wracking job, especially for your first try, but the few minutes of quaking in your boots is worth it for the experience. I also found it a great way to share knowledge about my project, and got ome great feedback from people who watched.

The weeks before

I was lucky enough to avail of the BSides London Mentorship program this year. Having a mentor who has already delivered a few talks and who can keep you on track is a great boon. The mentors have all already been through this before, and they know what goals to set and when to set them for in order for you to deliver your presentation successfully. Everyone’s going to be different but my mentor, David Rook, suggested having the slide content finished a couple of weeks before BSides so that there was enough time to become confident with delivering the presentation. Doing this allowed me to rattle off my talk with very little slide content and minimal notes – keeping the attention on my speech rather than my slides let me give a better overall presentation. Mentors will also know what makes a talk good – so listen to any advice you can get on the structure or layout of your talk. At the same time don’t forget to put your own spin on things, and make it your own work!

If you’ve decided to give a talk, you’re obviously interested in security and the topic you decide to talk on; use this enthusiasm to your advantage. Think about what you want to talk about – don’t rush into giving a talk just because you want to get your first one done. Make sure the topic is something you really enjoy, find interesting or are proud of.

The most important thing to do is practice, often. Get feedback on your presentation from anyone you can trick into listening – friends and co-workers are good bets. Revise it based on this feedback. Encourage questions. If you’re working on a project, try to arrange giving your presentation to your target users – they can give feedback on both your project and your presentation both; killing two birds with one stone.

When practicing your talk, you’ll probably plan out a brilliant speech in your head that you’re hoping to deliver word for word with perfect timing. That won’t happen. In fact, every time you give the talk it’ll most likely be unique. When I stopped to correct myself during a practice with my mentor I was told – “You’re the only person who knows you made a mistake. Just keep going”. On the day I may not have said exactly what I originally wanted to, but that didn’t matter – I got across all the points that I wanted to, and pausing to rephrase myself would have just eaten up time and made it a dreadful presentation to watch.

Prepare yourself to avoid Murphy’s Law. Make sure to keep a few backups of any important files you will need – your slides, your project if you have one (use a version control system – and just ship it!), and any demo video you might have made. If you plan on having a demo, do try make it a live demo – but be sure to have a video backup also. Hopefully you won’t need to fall back on it but it’s good to have the safety net there. I had 4 copies of my presentation available on the day – one on my laptop, one on Robin Woods’s laptop, and two on USB keys – but I’m paranoid! You don’t need to go overboard.

The days before

Test your slides on a projector or large screen or projector to see how they scale up. Any small problems with layouts should be visible on the big screen and it’s better not to see them for the first time on the day. Test anything else you need on the large screen too, such as a demo if you have one. It’s important to be happy with your slides – both in looks and content. Try to be in a position that if all else fails; you can deliver your speech without slides. I don’t think many people could do this for their first talk (I certainly didn’t know my talk that well) but it’s a nice goal to aim for!

The night before

Relax, and don’t obsess over your slides. I tried to revise them a few times the night before my talk and just started panicking. It’s better to chill, calm yourself down & get a good night’s rest. While this might not be true for everyone, I can’t use my grey matter until I’ve gotten some food – so get a good breakfast the morning of your talk.

Remember, you’re always going to be your own worst critic. It’s important to be aware that no one ever pays as much attention to you as you do – even when you’re up giving a talk the only person holding you under a microscope is yourself.

I’ll encourage everyone to give a talk, and I hope a few of the things I learned along the way can help you. All the rookie talks I saw at BSides London were great, and I hope to catch up on the ones I didn’t see in the coming few days as videos start appearing online! Finally I want to thank the BSides London crew, especially everyone involved in the Rookie track, and all the mentors who had the patience to teach us rookies.

Diarmaid