Skip to content

speaking-guidelines.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
79 lines (60 loc) · 3.73 KB

speaking-guidelines.md

File metadata and controls

79 lines (60 loc) · 3.73 KB

Triangle DevOps – Guidelines for Speakers

Thank you for your interest in presenting to Triangle DevOps. We very much appreciate it.

We have a few guidelines we ask you to understand about presenting to our group.

Preparing your talk

First, talks should aim for about 45 minutes to an hour of length. Lean for shorter than an hour if you're expecting your talk to generate questions.

Please let us know how long you're expecting your talk to run ahead of time so we can make sure time is budgeted accordingly.

Second, we have a mix of experiences and backgrounds in our group. Be careful about assuming that the acronyms, terms, concepts and skills you'll be speaking about are universally understood. We want to hear from a broad range of opinion, experience and expertise. Help bring our members along with you by taking a moment to explain acronyms and briefly explain foundational concepts. Look over your material and ask what a newcomer to the field might not understand.

Third, please review our Code of Conduct with respect to your talk. We want your talk to reflect the inclusiveness we seek for our community. To that end, we kindly ask as you prepare that you:

  • Use non-gendered, inclusive, language like "folks" over "guys"
  • Be mindful that animated GIFs, memes and memespeak may have a limited audience. They're fine to use within the boundaries of the Code of Conduct, but make sure you read the room to see if everyone's catching on. When in doubt, explain the meaning behind the GIF, meme or memespeak.
  • Avoid entirely any sexualized text, images, videos, and/or verbal descriptions.

If you have questions about your talk, whether it's concepts or specific materials and its fitness for presentation to our group, we will be happy to discuss that with you.

Technically speaking, we can generally accommodate VGA and Mini DisplayPort connections at the venues we use. If you need a different video connection, please let us know so we can coordinate and make arrangements ahead of time.

Before your talk

Our monthly meetups, unless otherwise announced, start at 7. Doors may open earlier, at the venue's option. 6:45 PM is typical. The first 10 to 15 minutes from 7 PM are for networking for the attendees. Please arrive before or as close to 7 PM as you can. Let the venue host or an organizer know when you've arrived, and we'll show you where you'll be presenting.

We'll begin the program with announcements, a call for "who's hiring", and then introduce you. You're on!

During your talk

  • We generally don't have microphones, so please project
  • If you are asked questions from the audience, please repeat the question. It's typically easier to hear you in the audience than it is an audience member on the other side of the room
  • If it seems like your talk is running long, we will attempt to accommodate with the venue, but we will not always be able to to do. Generally, if you're running longer than an hour of speaking time, we'll give you a five minute warning to bring your talk to a conclusion
    • Expect that we'll look to have your talk wrap by 8:30 PM.
  • Immediately after your talk, we generally have a little more community social time, giving you a chance to interact 1-to-1 with the audience. How long is up to the venue, but 10-15 minutes is typical.

After your talk

At your discretion, we would like to share the slide deck and any other materials from the presentation with our members. We'll link to those materials directly on the meeting page for your presentation. Generally, those are sent to us as a link over Twitter. We will provide attribution when we share your slides with our members through the @TriangleDevOps Twitter account.

Thank you so much for presenting to us!