Rants shouldn't be taken too seriously Extra: - announce at the beginning if it's an open-source tool, a commercial tool or just a theoretical concept.

1. my 2c (rant) on giving
technical presentations
my first and last text-only slidedeck ;)
hastily typed by
Ange Albertini
www.corkami.com

2. disclaimer:
I’m no award-winning
presenter
but I saw too many ‘awesome presentations’
where the person on stage just read out loud a
blog post
instead of giving a good presentation.
and they presented the same thing the month before.
TBH we were just listening to show respect
for the technical level of the presenter,

3. reminder:
don’t take it personally
just a generic rant from a normal guy:
I have no cert, no fancy education,
I never presented at $LeetCon
you can close this window now.

5. tell a story…
rehearse a lot…
a picture is worth…
bullet points…
don’t be an assh*le...
the usual advice

6. <insert fancy title here>
with buzzwords!
or cool sentences like:
“...for fun & profit”
“yo dawg, I herd you like...”
How many great music bands called their first albums “1”, “2”, “3”...
did that matter ?

7. my bio is awesome
I’ve been XX years in the industry
I code/break stuff
my employer is awesome and hiring
does saying that make any difference?

8. let’s make my bio bigger
with really unrelated stuff
wow, so you’re awesome at $sport ?
ever heard Tom Morello mentioning he
attended Harvard during a concert ?
or Brian May talking about astrophysics
between 2 songs ?

9. my life is awesome
AKA: do you really need yet another real life pic?
I’m really happy to see a picture of your desk!
oohh, I have the same mousepad !
and that toy that anybody can get at thinkgeek!!
just for a prezo that can be summarized in 5 mins?

10. define the audience
both lower and upper limits of technical details

11. use non-technical analogies
when possible
we’re techies, but it’s always nice to be able
to explain it to non-techies.
and our kids.

12. refrain from showing
something too technical
if only one person in the audience gets it,
then better just mention it
and put it in an extra document

13. it’s about following an argument,
not random knowledge stuffing
don’t show off with unrelated stuff,
it’s just a distraction
despite the potential WOW effect

14. showing code doesn’t
make it always better
processing any programming language takes
time,
so you may want to:
- focus on describing what’s happening
- show the code in extra ‘offline’ document

15. clean-up screenshots
do you really need to show IDA offsets?
(or the full IDE/desktop/whatever)
every time?
nvm, we can set ProcessDetails=0 in eyes.cfg

16. limit text as much as possible
AKA: are you a lawyer redacting a EULA?
keep extra details for an extra document such as :
- extra slides after the conclusion
- offline version of the slides
- article
- detailed blog post

17. but this deck is text-only !!!
it wasn’t presented live anywhere ;)

18. slides shouldn’t be boring.
PoCs should be sexy.
but it’s OK, if you have nothing to show.
(or just add another meme !!!)

19. add another meme plz
they’re so funny !!
we’ve never seen them before !!

20. “sorry, I started my
slides yesterday”
“I’m too leet for those of you who invested a
lot of effort to come and attend”

21. “this is the same
presentation I did last year”
“I’m too leet to make some extra effort”
or maybe
“the person who did the actual research had
no more time for it,
I’m just the show puppet”

22. “I actually improved this prezo,
but I kept it for $leetcon”
“I’m really too leet for you, s*ckers”

23. “I don’t have the time for
fancy slides”
a suggestion to save your precious time:
- go back to your work desk
- paste your slides’ text into pastebin
- tweet the link
voilà!

24. demos failure can
happen to everyone
but at least, a fallback slide/video recording
would have been nice
aka “when a guitar string is broken on stage,
the drummer starts a solo”

25. you may never be
completely ready...
but well prepared may be enough...

26. make a test presentation
with your friends
to feel more comfortable…
to see the public’s reaction…
to answer further questions in advance...

27. vendor pitch?
don’t even get me started

28. Conclusion

29. reminder:
don’t take rants seriously
we still love you for your awesome research
provided it’s really awesome, that is:
not just your fancy smile or haircut.

30. the end
you can close this window now...

31. hey, you jumped to the
end!
(awww, french guys aren’t funny anyway)