Aaron Kalin on Conference Speaking and Presentation Skills | ChicagoWebConf 2012
Hi, I'm Mike. I'm here with UGtastic at Chicago WebConf again and I'm sitting with Aaron Kalin. Hi, I'm Mike. I'm here with UGtastic at Chicago WebConf again and I'm sitting with Aaron Kalin. Dive into the world of conference speaking and panel moderation with Aaron Kalin! Learn the key differences and tips for keeping your panel focused and engaging.
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Hi, I'm Mike. I'm here with UGtastic at Chicago WebConf again and I'm sitting with Aaron Kalin. Aaron has been heavily involved with the Ruby community, doing a lot of speaking over the years. But also, he's your trainer at Treehouse and today he just did a panel discussion in Chicago WebConf. Aaron, can you tell a little bit about how is it different doing a presentation versus doing like a panel and how did you prepare for it? Did you prepare differently?
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
Well, I'd never done a panel style thing before. I've been to conferences where there's panels so I kind of know what the format was but I got this sort of last minute from JCU and the organizers I think just literally a couple days ago you'd already been mentioning it to me but it wasn't really official yet. And then literally about two days ago I got an email saying, "Hey, I realize it's last minute but do you want to moderate the panel on the future of Web?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
" And I said, "Sure, why not?
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
" And I had no idea what I was getting into. But I'm sort of like a Boy Scout, I want to be prepared so I started researching online. Just like trying to get prepared for it, like getting in the mindset.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
How is that different from like when you prepare to do a regular presentation? Is it vastly different or is it a very different mindset? Because one I think you would be like, "What am I going to talk about? What are they going to talk about?
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
" Well, so I guess the huge difference is that when it's a presentation it's actually a bit more about you, especially if like you're one of the scenic conferences where they announce the speakers really early before they close call for proposals. I've been one of those where they like directly invite you with the exception of I think WindyCityRails, but it's not to where like people are coming to see you directly.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
So at that point a presentation is really all about the speaker.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
And you know, of course you want to include the audience and all that stuff in there, but it's really more of like, you're self focused, but it's the exact opposite on a panel. You want to moderate and be sort of the guy with the whip, but you also don't want to be the center of attention because it's about the panelists and not the moderator specifically. So there's this weird balancing act you have to play, at least, you know, everything I was reading about it and it started to make sense about all the panels that I've seen that I thought were good, where the moderator doesn't become the center of attention and more or less, you know, you try to ask some questions that aren't necessarily directly polarizing, but enough to invoke some good conversation because you want to get, you know, everyone's opinions and especially if you have a panel of very differing backgrounds and opinions, you're going to get some sometimes very similar or very different answers and just balancing that where it's not about you and that's the hard part.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
I'm used to presenting where it's like, yeah, hey, these are my stories. This is my, you know, subject I want to talk about, all that stuff, but then switching that completely off and trying to keep that, you know, curb and not try to start like stealing attention is, is, is difficult.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
And when, when you were doing this, um, the presentation, were all the panelists, first time panelists or they had ever sat on a panel before? I didn't get enough time to really ask. So I'm going to go check after, after this interview and, and sort of, you know, hey, that was cool. Um, I think that I only got to say that to Jen because Tim was already kind of walking away. I was still there, but talking to someone else and I was saying like, you know, great job, you know, you guys did a good, a good job and everything. So I don't really, I'll have to go collect those thoughts afterwards to make sure, you know, when I did a good job and, you know, the other thing too, when you're a moderator is you don't want to, you want to make the panelists look really smart and you don't want to belittle them at all and you don't want to, you know, railroad them in any way, but you also don't want them to become the center of attention. So that's like the other part of it too, of, you know, making sure that you keep control of anyone who starts to take the mic and I told them before we started, like there's, for me, there's a hard like two minute limit or something close to it. If it's a good conversation, I'll let it go. But if you start rambling and getting on a pulpit, then I'm going to pull you down.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
You know, get the audience to say something or something like that. Now if somebody did go off, I mean, I'm going to presume that nobody went off the rails here, but did you learn any techniques like, oh, if somebody is starting to kind of rant a bit or hog the mic, was there any like kind of tips or tricks that you learned?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Like, oh, say this kind of thing or this is how you can diffuse it? Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
So I read a couple of different techniques. One was to sort of, you know, find a spot when they're grabbing their breath. So you have to start when, start noticing your head that they're going a little bit beyond. Like I was also, you know, looking at my iPad occasionally to see, you know, the clock and all that stuff and I started noticing they're getting a little bit off on a tangent. I think that only really happened, like I was aware of it once or twice. And that's when you're, you know, the trigger starts to go in my head of, okay, I need to start listening to what they're saying. So at some point if I can find a graceful pause, then I'll interject a joke somewhere. Like I'll try to do that. So like I'll, you know, and it's sort of easy to do with the front end stuff. So you can feel like, you know, throwing comic sans or just something to get the audience to laugh and get the audience to break that pattern. And then I guess, you know, usually people sort of get the message like I just stopped you gracefully. So just let it go.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
And then the other technique too is also interjecting with like adding onto the conversation. So you sort of step in and you grab the, the mic for a minute and then you can disperse it back out.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Okay.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
So yeah. So one is kind of a, I want to say like the magicians look over here. There's a word for that. I'm just drawing a blank on it.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
Just misdirection. Misdirection. Misdirection.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Aaron Kalin
conference speaking and presentation skills
▶ Speaking
Misdirection. And then the other one was helping them take that step and realizing, oh, okay. I, cause one of the things I do with the interviews is if I feel like somebody is starting to repeat themselves, that's usually the time where if we're starting to come back around on the topic. Like we started it talking about one subject, one off, and then all of a sudden now it feels like, oh, we're back on that topic. Either, it's either a graceful stopping point or try to push them back to the original topic. Um, you've also taught classes and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've had to deal with, um, uh, you know, feel. feel.