Comment by tristor

I've given many talks at conferences, meetups, and otherwise. My number one piece of advice is to /really/ know your subject. Sometimes I am asked to present something I don't already intimately know, and it can be tempting to put together a presentation and learn just enough to present, but it's MUCH better to really go deep and learn the subject fully. Why?

1. Competence creates confidence, and confidence creates trust.

2. You can answer questions, pretty much any question, and if you can't you can let the audience know graciously without coming off as unknowledgable.

3. It makes it easier to present well, because you don't need to or are not tempted to read from the slides, you're telling a story or sharing information in a natural way, off the dome, using the slides only as a topic guide because you already fully understand everything about the subject.

I have found this to be so important, that I sometimes /choose/ to present something I'm interested in but don't know well (with enough lead time) as a jumping off point to dig deep into it. I have long believed if you want to really understand something, the benchmark for having achieved competence is successfully teaching that subject to another person and seeing them succeed with it.