10 Mistakes to Avoid in a Conference Talk

1.     Don't speak for more than your assigned time

This is really the golden rule. Most conference presentations at the International AIDS Conference are only 10 minutes long. This is already pretty short -- but if someone is translating simultaneously into English for you, that will cut the time of the presentation in half, to only 5 minutes.

One of the most common mistakes made by beginners and experienced speakers alike is to talk past the time limit. This frustrates the audience and is unfair to your fellow panelists. To avoid doing this, think about what you can realistically say in ten (or five) minutes. Once you have written your talk, practice it with a clock and time yourself.

Above all, please don't alienate your audience by complaining about how you don't have enough time to do your topic justice. Everyone at a conference (except for the plenary speakers) has the same amount of speaking time, and we all knew what the time limit would be when we accepted the invitation to speak at the conference.

Try to view the time limit as a creative challenge. Some of the world's greatest and most memorable poetry is Japanese haiku, written in only 17 syllables. How can you use your very short time to be inspiring, thought-provoking, or intriguing?

If you're successful, there will be plenty of people interested in hearing more from you later.

2.     Don't just talk about your NGO

Some presenters -- usually, novices -- focus their talk on how great their own programs and organizations are, listing their projects and showing pictures of people sitting in trainings. This is a sure way to bore your audience.  

Instead, think about what your experience running great programs has taught you about larger issues, things that will benefit others. Is there some burning legal or policy issue you know of that needs to be fixed? Have you found a solution to an intractable problem? This is a good time to talk about those issues.

Think about your audience, what you want to achieve, and what you want audience members to do to address the issues. However...

3.     Don't get complicated

At the same time, we have found that even the smartest, most alert and least jet-lagged audience in the world can only take in a limited amount of information in the course of a long day of sitting in a conference room. Make no more than three major points in your talk - one point is probably better. Then, find different ways to reinforce and repeat the same points.

One of our colleagues points out that in his legendary "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. repeated the words "I have a dream" over twenty times. He illustrated the phrase with many concrete examples, and created an unforgettable message.

4.     Don't assume the audience knows your context

At the International AIDS Conference, it's safe to assume that most audience members know the basics about HIV/AIDS and how it is transmitted. However, they may not know much about your particular country - especially if you're one of the few representatives at the meeting from that country. Unfortunately, some of your limited time needs to be spent sharing some basic facts (how many people are living with HIV in your country? Is that number reliable? Is treatment widely available? if not many people know your country well, where is it located?).

If you really don't want to waste time reviewing basic facts, you can put them in an English-language handout you distribute to the audience.

5.     Use individual stories from your experience to bring issues to life

When you're talking about those larger policy issues, you can help listeners to grasp them better, and remember them, and even share them with others, if you use individual case studies to illustrate what you're talking about. While statistics are important, they fail to move people. One compelling individual story can be far more powerful.

For example, if you say "a recent survey of Chinese hospitals found that 25% of medical staff held discriminatory attitudes to people with AIDS," this is less powerful than if you add the case of, for instance, a 12-year-old boy living with HIV who was expelled from a hospital while waiting to receive life-saving surgery.

This is also a nice way to showcase your organization's expertise indirectly: by talking about the real people you encounter through your programs.

6.     Don't use PowerPoint slides

Apologies to Bill Gates, but in our collective experience, PowerPoint is distracting, confusing, often takes time to set up in the conference, and puts many audience members to sleep. Worse, instead of looking at and connecting with you, your audience members will be looking at your slides. Above all, do not read from PowerPoint slides. Your audience will be able to read the slides themselves.

If you must use PowerPoint, don't use words to tell your story - instead, use photographs or charts that help to illustrate the points that you make (perhaps a picture of one of the individuals whose story you tell). If you must use words, use no more than 3-4 bullet points per slide, and only a few words for each bullet point.

7.     Create a short handout that summarizes your points

In case your translator isn't polished, or people in the audience can't hear you, or they come in late, it's useful to have an English-language handout that summarizes the key points you want to make in your talk. You can put your website and contact information on it as well, so that someone in the lecture can pass it on to others they know who might be interested in the topic, or follow up with you later by email.

Make sure your materials are polished and represent you well. Have someone who is fluent in English proofread your presentation, as well as anything else you plan to distribute. If you don't have someone to help you with this, you can run a spelling and grammar check on your word processing software.

8.     Don't assume anything about the translator

Your translator could be an experienced professional who knows your subject well, or he could just be the friend of someone who happened to be free at the time. Worse, he could be someone with his own agenda, and could change or leave out things you say.

To prepare, send the translator a copy of your text before the presentation. Set a time to sit down with him or her a few minutes beforehand to buy him/her a cup of coffee and thank him/her for the help. If there are any points that could be confusing or controversial, make sure that she or he knows exactly what you want to say.

9.     It's best not to deliver the presentation in a foreign language unless you are fluent

You may be tempted to try to read the presentation in English yourself. If you are not comfortable speaking English in everyday life, unfortunately, your audience will probably have a difficult time understanding your pronunciation. If you have any doubts at all, it is best to use a translator.

10.  Don't miss the chance to connect with your audience

Your audience wants to connect with you personally. Try to memorize your presentation so that you can just use your notes as a reference without reading for the whole time. Instead of looking at the paper, make eye contact with different audience members, moving your eyes around the room, so that they feel as if you are talking to them personally. Find ways to engage them informally at the beginning of your talk, perhaps with a positive comment about the conference, a joke about jet lag or the weather, etc.

One way to handle this is to think of yourself as the host and your audience as your guests. They want your talk to be lively and successful as much as you do.If you pretend to feel comfortable, you probably will gradually begin to feel that way.

Last but not least, bring plenty of name cards! After your lively, successful and engaging presentation, you are going to meet many new potential allies or donors.