What is a lightning talk? It’s a short presentation that:

• Lasts five minutes
• Delivers a message

Lightning Talk Process

• On Friday, a week before the talk, meet as a group to brainstorm and select topics
• On Monday, bring a brain-dump of ideas and facts gathered through research
• For Tuesday, prepare an outline of the talk’s structure (outline suggestions below)
• For Wednesday, prepare a rough-draft (with slides, if you’ll use them) to walk through
• On Thursday, conduct a rehearsal in front of the talk group

Outlining a Lightning Talk

One of the things that’s great about lightning talks is that five minutes can only go so wrong. It is an opportunity to be experimental.

But, until you have your feet under you as a speaker, we suggest adopting one of the tried-and-true patterns of successful talks. The most common goes like this:

• Problem Statement
• Problem Argument
• Solution
• Demonstration / Solution Argument
• Resolution
• Leave Behind / Next Steps

Is that a lot to fit in 5 minutes? You bet!

Problem Statement

Why should the audience bother listening to your talk? How does this material connect with them? The problem statement should be challenging or combative enough to draw them in.

Problem Argument

A great talk typically does not fit for everyone, assert your problem and solution with authority. Start an argument.

Who does this apply to? What evidence do you see of the problem? Why is the problem worth solving?

Solution

"TA-DA, I have the cure for your ills!" Bring it with gusto. You have to believe this is going to change their lives.

Demonstration / Solution Argument

You’ve dropped the solution concept on them, now you need to back it up. Here’s what it looks like when you use this tool. Here’s how you think differently when you have this knowledge or skill.

Don’t give soft platitudes. Grab them by the shirt collar and yell. In the literary world, this is your climax.

Resolution

Once you’ve enacted this solution, this is what you’ll get. You’re bringing the energy down a bit, focusing on the wonderful new world where the tool has been adopted or skill mastered.

Leave Behind / Next Steps

But compel them to act. Your talk should end with a suggestion or an action. Introducing a tool? Announce a meetup where you’ll dig into it step-by-step. Discussing a skill? What’s the essential follow-up reading where they can learn more about it.

Make sure to leave the leave-behind up while your presentation closes and the audience claps. It can, if you so choose, be well combined with your name/title/contact info in one single closing slide.

Things to Keep in Mind

Let’s imagine that I’m putting together a lightning talk about the Pomodoro Technique.

A Topic Is Not A Purpose

A purpose is not the same as a topic. My topic is "Pomodoro techique," but my purpose would be something like this:

| Convince developers that working in short bursts with frequent breaks is more productive than marathon work sessions

The purpose leads you to the conclusion of your talk. What is the one thing that your audience must walk away with?

Starting Point

• Who’s in the audience?
• What do they already know about this topic?
• Are they already convinced of the purpose? If so, don’t give the talk!

In my example, I’m speaking to 24 developers who have probably just started using pomodoros in the past week. They understand the mechanics, but not much about the message. Some of them think it’s cool because you get lots of coffee breaks, but others think it’s a waste of time. All of them probably think I’m unnecessarily a hardass about the start and end of pomodoros.

Support Your Argument

What arguments will I make to move the audience from the Starting Point to the Purpose/Conclusion?

• Health problems with sitting, reduced by frequent walking
• "Exclusionary time" where you focus on one thing
• Multi-tasking is a myth
• Tracking time via pomodoros
• Break time is (background) work time
• Dangers of sloppy clock management

Presentation Style

Lightning talks are so short that you have many options for a presentation style:

• Naked: no support, just you and a mic. Strictly for stone cold presentation dominators.
• Text-Based: The easiest to construct. Distil your key concepts down to small fragements or phrases and use Keynote to present them one after another. Generally use six or fewer words per slide.
• Image-Based: Use only images with no text. This is really a riff on the naked talk because you have to remember what you’re supposed to be saying without the text on screen to drive you.
• Text/Image Hybrid: The most common, some text, some images, usually a meme or two. It was cool in 2010, now it’s a little…standard.
• Performance: The only thing more avant-garde than a naked talk is a performance talk: slam poetry, series of haikus, interpretive dance, original song, live drawing, or a group activity. You won’t be forgotten, but with a short time it’s difficult to deliver on your purpose.
• Story time: Regardless of your overall presentation style, telling a story is a great way to connect with people while illustrating your point

Practice

• Run through your lightning talk at least three times. You’ll have much more confidence and your audience will appreciate the preparation.
• Make sure you can cover everything you want to within the five minute time limit.
• If you can, run through the presentation in front of another person. They’ll pick up things you would never notice on your own.

What Not to Do

Here are some of the common things that new presenters do which slaughter their credibility/purpose:

• Don’t start off by discrediting your work with a comment like "Not sure how this is going to go, I’ve been up since 3am putting it together"
• Don’t spend all your time looking at the ceiling, floor, or projector. Look at your audience, glance at your materials as necessary.
• Don’t forget that Keynote offers a "presenter view" where you see what’s coming next before the audience
• Don’t use a bunch of fancy transitions and effects unless they’re ironic. Most everything "3D" is off limits.
• Don’t put full sentences on a slide, ever.
• Don’t put long quotes then proceed to read them to the audience. Just use the author’s photo and read it from your notes.
• Don’t forget your purpose. If there’s no takeaway, then there’s no point.