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Obvious things conference speakers should do:
- submit a talk proposal
- take a photo/selfie
- write up bio
- give the talk
Not obvious things conference speakers should do:
- update email filter so emails from conference organizers don't end up in spam
- when traveling, plan to arrive at Talk day - 2 days, in case of flight cancellations
- show up at least 30 minutes before the talk slot, not 5 minutes before
- use light mode presentation slides (light bg, dark text)
anything else?
- Learn if there's a green room, and use it if so.
- Plan what you will do with your junk during the talk. Where is your backpack going? Swag bag? Phone? Jacket?
- Make sure you are hydrated and empty your bladder an hour beforehand. Both overhydration and dehydration can make stage fright feel *way* worse (and vice versa).
- Are you using your own clicker? Charge & test it about 6 hours early. Give yourself time to buy new batteries (you will forget them).
@glyph Yes the clicker!! Somehow I expected that should be a "given", something conference organizers would provide (and Display adapter), so I don't need to bring my own, but there were a few times when I've had to use my own clicker 
The clicker is now part of my traveling kit.
@mariatta @glyph the display adaptor can be a problem - for example Apple devices are not common on South Africa, so only 1 or 2 presentations a year at PyConZA use one. None of the organisers have an Apple so the first time in recent years that someone needed a specific adaptor we had to scrabble to borrow one from another attendee as we didn't know the one we had wouldn't do. We now specify HDMI input and make it clear presenters need to bring whatever they need to emit HDMI.
@kimvanwyk @mariatta what kind of "specific adaptor" are you talking about? by "an Apple" you mean like someone was trying to present from their Lightning-only iPhone?
@glyph @mariatta I have no idea actually, I wasn't directly in the room at the time and I don't know enough about Apple devices to know the likely details. It's possible I've got the wrong end of the stick and the kit the conference owns would have worked but was already in use. Effectively I know the lesson we took from it was to repeatedly remind speakers well before the conference to please ensure they bring what they need to connect to HDMI.
@kimvanwyk @mariatta the specific complaint hit my eye oddly just because it's the sort of thing that would have been a vendor-specific problem in like… 2012, maybe… but nowadays if you've got a dell XPS or a macbook air you're in the same boat ;). Nevertheless, the core message, "communicate clearly about display output requirements" is important.
Not just "HDMI" either. Resolution is an important detail! Some places allegedly have 4:3 setups, which is a nightmare if you're not expecting it…
@glyph @mariatta good point on resolution, I should have mentioned it. The pyconZA setup forces 1280x720 @ 50Hz as the only option through a display adapter programmed to only accept that. The more important thing we do here though is be very clear about this and include it in the technical setup instructions in the conference website: https://2023.za.pycon.org/talks/presentation-setup-details/
@glyph @kimvanwyk I was thinking it's the MacBook with USB C?
@mariatta @kimvanwyk It is true that that is "not HDMI" but a lot of laptops are in that boat these days (ThinkPad Z13, Dell XPS 13, microsoft surface pro, HP spectre, etc), not particularly an Apple thing
@mariatta @kimvanwyk not to mention the fact that about half of Apple's line-up *does* have HDMI ports these days, too.
@mariatta @kimvanwyk But that's why I asked: people *do* show up with something truly wacky like a Lightning-based iPad and want to present. Technically speaking if you have the right adapter you *can* do the whole thing from your phone, no laptop needed, but gosh I wouldn't want to do that except as a lightning talk where the fact that it worked would be the whole stunt :)
@glyph @mariatta @kimvanwyk Sorry for replying to an old post, but I wanted to provide some insight—if South Africa is similar to Brazil in that regard, it’s probably because older and more budget-oriented computers are much more common than modern ones (let’s say, 4 years old or newer). Many, many professors of mine still have laptops with VGA ports or older ports, no USB-C at all, etc. Regular USB-C ports on laptops is still a fairly new thing here (compared to countries in the Global North).
@glyph @mariatta @kimvanwyk I travel with adapters and extra cables labeled with my name, Mastodon username, and email address because I’ve seen that happen somewhat frequently and always end up lending an item or two to conference organizers in the Global South. Hell, I’ve done that regularly in class at my university because our projectors are old and we haven’t had the budget to buy new cables for a while.
@anna @mariatta it's a similar situation here in South Africa, many people are on older hardware, especially those attending conferences at their own expense. Apple products are particularly expensive here, a MacBook can be 3-4x the price of a roughly equivalent non-Apple laptop which isn't cheap itself.