Tips for Giving an Ignite Talk

Jeff Coburn Speaking at 2015 NTC. Photo Courtesy of Trav Williams, Broken Banjo Photography

Last March I had the pleasure of being an Ignite speaker at the 2015 Nonprofit Technology Conference. It was one of the bigger moments of my professional career, and I was pleased with how the talk turned out, and how it was received.

If you aren’t familiar with Ignite talks (slogan: enlighten us, but make it quick), they last exactly five minutes, with 20 slides advancing every 15 seconds; whether you are ready or not. It’s a bit of a spectator sport for the audience. Below is my talk, and a link to supplemental Tumblr post.

Mining Our Mistakes

Amy Sample Ward, the CEO of NTEN, and organizer of the NTC, recently reached out to last year’s Ignite presenters to give helpful tips to this year’s presenters. Because I have yet to milk a sufficient amount of adulation for this talk, I have decided to post my tips here. These are things that worked for me, so milage may vary…

1. Start preparing early. I found that the talk that I started preparing evolved over time, and turned into a very different talk. Allow time for that evolution. Easy to say, right? But a rough outline is an easy way to get something started.
2. Record your rehearsal (and then imitate yourself). I am one of the people who can quote back entire movies to you (you should stop me if I start doing this). I found that if I recorded the talk, allowing myself to read my notes, I ended up with an ideal version of the talk that I could re-watch. When I actually gave the talk, I felt like I was doing a imitation of myself, if that makes any sense.
3. 15 seconds is not a lot of time. I felt more comfortable having less words, and possibly having a pause between slides, rather than feeling rushed as my slides advanced ahead of my words. Use the auto-play feature in Power Point to practice having 15 seconds per slide.
4. Rehearse 1476 times. Maybe that is excessive. But it is only a 5 minute talk, so you can rehearse this anytime you have 5 minutes to spare (up to 12 times an hour).
5. Rehearse in front of friends and randos. You’ll get a lot of feedback that may influence the final version of the talk. Friends will give you trusted feedback, but people outside of your inner-circle might give you more honest feedback. I did versions of the talk in the few minutes after a meeting ended, that was a good way to get a small captive audience.
6. Rehearse at the venue, if possible. Our Ignite talks were on the main stage in front of the whole conference. Stage lights, echo from the PA system, holding a microphone, are all things that can be oddly disorienting. Getting comfortable with these elements are things you should try and do before you are standing in front of 2,000 or so people.
7. When you get on stage, smile. Like smiling on the phone (to sound more pleasant), smiling on stage made me start off feeling comfortable. Ignite talks are a bit intense and the crowd feels that too. So smiling lets everybody feel comfortable that you feel comfortable.
8. Remember to enjoy yourself. You’re gonna do fine. Maybe you flub a few lines, but nobody will care or remember. Everybody in the house wants you to do well, and is interested in hearing what you have to say. So stand up there and share you story.