How to Give an Ignite Talk

Ignite talks.  PechaKucha.  Lighting Talks.  And even, to an extent, TED Talks. Whatever you call it, conference organizers in law, libraries and legal education are starting to incorporate these talks into their events.  If you’ve never seen one, each speaker gives a short (5-10 minute) talk with either no or automatically advancing slides.   They are fun for the audience and, when done well, can border on brilliant in their ability to present a complicated topic in a short amount of time.  And if they’re terrible, well…at least it’s all over soon.

I’m far from an expert, but I’ve been privileged to have been invited to give a couple of these.  From the speaker’s standpoint I can tell you that they are equally freeing and terrifying.  Since they are becoming more common, I thought I’d share what I know about creating and crafting a one of these presentations.

First though, this is how I usually craft a normal presentation:

1. Get topic.
2. Spend ridiculous amount of time finding a powerpoint template.
3. Have general outline of major points to hit.
4. Procrastinate and become convinced that I am a total fraud and I have no idea about anything.
5. Write talk as I am creating slides, spending a ridiculous amount of time finding the perfect images for each slide.  Years of talk experience have shown that, for me, I should aim for a maximum of a little less than one slide per minute  for the amount of minutes allotted for the talk (remembering to leave time for questions!!!)  So, for example, for a 60 minute session, I’d subtract 15 minutes for questions, which leaves me 45 minutes to talk.  45 x .75 = 33.75, so I’d aim to have NO MORE than 34 slides.  Less is great.  I just am reeaaaaaly addicted to making slides and thus work to limit myself.

Now, for an Ignite/PechaKucha Talk, I found I had to do almost the exact opposite of my usual M.O.   Whereas in my usual talks, the images and information on my slides were my main emphasis, in an Ignite talk, I have had to learn to make those the least important part of my preparation.

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I still will spend a ridiculous amount of time cruising compfight to find CC licensed images.  I just save that for last.

Writing a Ignite Talk Steps:

1. Figure out how fast you talk.  I do this by setting a stopwatch for one or two minutes and then reading something out loud in my normal, non-coffee-d up speaking voice.  I like the Gettysburg Address.  I do this a few times and see how far I get in the speech each time.  Count up the words, average them over the number of times you did your experiment and then divide by the number minutes you spoke.  For example, let’s say in three runs you got 270, 265, and 263 words in two minutes.  That averages out to 266 words per two minutes or 133 words per minute.
2. Once you know that, multiple your WPM rate by the number of minute they are giving you to talk to find your maxium word count.   A six minute ignite speech will give you 798 words.
3. Now write a speech using NO MORE than the number of words you could possible speak in a normal tone of voice in 6 minutes.  In the above example, 798.  You should probably aim to lose a couple of them so you can breathe and do other silly stuff like that.    There’s no rule that says you have to have wall to wall words for your time on stage.  It’s good presentation style to pause, make eye contact, smile and not pass out from a lack of oxygen.
4. Once your speech is written, you’re going to divide the final word count by the number of slides that they give you.   If your speech ends up being 760 words and you have 20 slides, then you can figure every 38 words your slides are going to advance.  I usually have my speech printed out and I make slashes where those breaks are.   This is your time to noodge words around and be aware of main points, dramatic pauses and that sort of thing.   Since you hopefully left yourself some wiggle room, you can choose what idea your want for which slide.
5. THAT BEING SAID, don’t get too tied into a slide = an idea.  Avoid text if you can and just use images so that – if you get off your rhythm – your audience will not notice and be more caught up by the fact the words coming out of your mouth and the words on the slide don’t match.
6. Make your slides.  YAAAAAAAAAAY!    Again, use lots of pictures and very few words.  Don’t be afraid to be funny or to use dramatic images – more so than you would traditionally do.  These short talk formats are above all meant to be fun.
7. Practice, practice, practice!  I’ll let you in on a little secret: I generally don’t practice my regular talks because my process of creating the presentation while writing it somehow generally makes it stick in my brain.  That is not going to fly with an ignite talk.  There’s no going back to a point or slide or reading notes or taking a sip of water while you try to remember what the heck you were going to say.   Get it down cold without the slides and then with them.

So that’s all I got.  I hope it helps.

Photo Credit: purplemattfish via Compfight cc