This blogpost will be a review of my talk at the FreeBSD Devsummit this year.
Benedict, who runs the Devsummit at EuroBSDCon, emailed me after he saw my talk was rejected from the main conference, asking if I wanted to still do it, but instead at the Devsummit.
I accepted obviously, I was already going and I still got to do my talk. Although, it was difficult timing because I didn't have as long to prepare the slides.
I got given a 1 hour slot, 15 mins longer than if I was accepted for the main conference, so I padded out the first 15 minutes with discussion about FreeBSD desktop.
To be honest I didn't really expect much. When I submitted the talk to EuroBSDCon I didn't believe many people would be interested in the talk as XMPP is a rather niche subject, and mixing niche (BSD) with niche (XMPP) doesn't always tend to work well.
I have done two previous talks, however I still expected to panic and end up rushing. The first talk I ever did was at FOSDEM 2026, and my laptop did not work with the projector minutes before the talk started, and I lost 10 minutes of my 20 minutes slot, and then had to speed run through my talk which was hell.
I still found the confidence to do a second talk at an unconference which I was really anxious about, and ended up stuttering a lot, also due to us needing to record the talk ourselves (I had help with that talk), the recording was really bad as well.
The thing I immediately noticed during my talk was I wasn't that scared, I knew a lot of the crowd so maybe that helped to some degree, however from the mess ups of the past two talks, I was ready for this one, I knew what to expect, and up until the end where I did some unplanned discussions about joining the XMPP network, which I had nothing prepped for, I stuttered very little, and the talk flowed well.
The thing I realised after the talk is how many people, even in a niche field, actually do share interests. I was approached by numerous people who enjoyed the talk, and even had their own experiences with XMPP on BSD desktop, and some asking for advice around XMPP on BSD.
Keep it simple, I personally use my slides as prompts for what I should discuss, and then choose the exact words during the talk. This helps make it feel more organic rather than reading from a script.
Don't use lots of fancy animations and images, these often detract from the talk itself. Unless you are talking about how great the latest animations you can do with x and y software, leave them out.
Read your slides, over and over again so you know them inside out. This helps with anxiety, but also with the flow of the talk, if you don't know what your slides contain you won't know what to talk about when it comes to talking.
Have a good nights sleep before. I made this mistake at FOSDEM, I pulled an all nighter to be able to make it to Brussels in the morning of day 1 of FOSDEM, just to rely on bottles and bottles of club mate (caffeine). My head was not clear, and thinking was difficult, and it reflected within the talk.
Pick smaller conferences to learn, and then go for the bigger conferences. My first talk was at the BSD devroom in FOSDEM, so there was max 50 people, my second talk was at an unconference with max 30 people, when it came to the devsummit it was a much bigger room with potentially a lot more people (I don't have the numbers), if I had done this talk as my first talk, it would likely have been a flop.
Coming soon! I will add them to my homepage, and update this blogpost once they are out.
I felt the talk was rushed, I didn't have much time before the Devsummit to prepare, my slides were honestly done a few days before I left for Brussels, and I finished them off a few hours before my talk. I do not recommend doing this, being prepared helps a lot with the anxiety.
Last year's Devsummit I was too scared to speak to most people, and then this year's not only was I speaking to people but I also did a talk in front of them. It is still amazing to me how in one or two years, I have went from being too scared to mutter a word to anyone, to being able to socialise and present talks in front of a crowd.
Thank you to Benedict for inviting me to do my talk at the Devsummit, it was a lot of fun, and I think people liked it? Also thank you for the time you put into the main conference being a PC member and also organising the Devsummit.