Comment by ilc

It can. But I don't want to compete for my slot with others who can give the same talk, or a talk that is similar.

I want to make the conference committee choose between "Do we want ilc's talk on X." or "Do we want foo's talk on Y." If we are both discussing the same thing, if I'm unknown, I will lose. OTOH, if I have something interesting to talk about... I have 2 routes to "victory". "ilc gives great talks, he gets good grades and is working on his skills." and "Man that's a damn cool topic. We want that at our conference, even if ilc isn't the BEST speaker, the combo is better."

I didn't start out as the best presenter. I learned. But I always knew I had to have an interesting topic, something that made it worth them giving me a slot.