Content Creation Series: Getting ready for your first talk
Tags: career, devrel, futurestack, cfp
Published: 2021-05-18 15:30:12


**Hello and welcome!!!**

  

Today I want to share with you something that I am currently hyped about: My first talk in a tech conference (in English).

2021 is officially the Pachi turns into a Speaker year! Haha 

In March I talked on the Shine Conference about [The power of giving up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaXc9677o_I&list=PLV1DucieyKyHifRlTGFwpDa-IKL-fvH7v&index=2), and I talked on TDC(a Brazilian tech conference) about Developer Relations. All online of course. 

[Next week FutureStack 2021 is hapenning! A free, online conference that will bring together Data Nerds to learn, share, and get inspired about observability — while we have fun!](https://www.therelicans.com/futurestack/level-up-with-the-relicans-at-futurestack-5g3l)  

And this is where my first talk will happen. 
![happy dance gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/qngUbAbaWRuFy/giphy.gif)

If you know me you know that I will be talking’ about CONTENT CREATION yey!  

While I am working on my talk, I decided to write this post to help me get clear on what I want to share at the conference. So you my reader friends, get a first hand glimpse of Leveling up as a Developer with content creation.

  

## Getting started putting your talk together

  

When applying for talks, we usually have to write abstracts. I started creating my talk based on the abstract and I asking myself: What do I want to teach to my audience?  

This will help me to north my content to make sure by the end of the talk, my audience will know what I wanted to teach.

  

## Gathering evidence

  

Next step is to collect any data that can make my talk stronger. It can be a research or graphics, projects I have worked on and live experiences that can add to my presentation. Depending on the topic, a nice personal story to tell to make it relatable and inspiring.

  

## Structure

  

Structuring my talk is next. First I write a few bullet points about what I want to talk about, on notion. For the talk I am currently working on, I have something like this:

  

-   How and why I started creating content
    

  

-   How creating content can level up your Developer Hard and soft skills
    

  

-   Choosing what to talk about
    

  

-   A little challenge.
    

  

Now, I add the evidence I have in the right places within my bullet points.

  

For example, for this talk I talk about my journey in tech and how creating content was life changing for me. This will go under “How and why I started creating content”.

  

Note that I don’t write my talk down, just ideas that I would like to share within each bullet point.

  

## Slide Deck

  

After I have my main points down, I like to get started with my slide deck, creating a slide for each bullet point.

  

About design, I choose something for free on Canva, and personalize it as I go. They have great presentation templates that don't need much work.
![First slide of my talk](https://www.therelicans.com/remoteimages/uploads/articles/8ixdqvav7h3g52gy8xxm.png)
 
  

With this basic slide deck done, I run a practice talk and as I talk, I e add any extra info that my slide may need.

  

I repeat this process a few times until I am happy. A day before the actual presentation, I do it again, but this time I run it through a friend or two for feedback.

  

## Final considerations


I now have my talk structured and my slides are ready. I also asked friends for Feedback that I will apply where it makes sense and I have practiced it a few times.

 Do I feel confident? Not 100%, no. But I know I did the best I could at this moment of my life.

 Am I nervous? Heck yeah haha But everyone says this is normal, so we gotta roll with it.

  
## An invitation
Before I finish, I would like to invite you to watch my talk! Here is the Abstract



> When we choose to purse a career in tech, especially as a developer, we have to accept that we will be learners forever. New languages,
> frameworks, APIs... New jobs and challenges... There is always
> something we want or need to learn.
> 
> We developers are always read to level up.
> 
> In this talk, I will tell you how you can use our "forever learning
> nature" to teach others, give back to our communities and be better
> professionals, all at the same time. 
> 
> How, you ask? Creating great content.


I really hope you can come see my talk! 
[You can sign up here,](https://bit.ly/futurestack-relicans) and it is free!