Dear speaker: If I see you mention that you “write a talk”, my assumption is you will read it instead of presenting, which means you’ll bore your audience to death.
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I’ve recently seen more and more conference speakers read from a prepared script. If you ask for my advice as to when this is appropriate, my answer is “never”, with a possible exception for your gramdmother’s 80th birthday
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Even more annoyingly, I’ve seen speakers read prepared talks from a script where I’m 100% certain they would have been able to just “wing it” to much better results
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One of the best talks I ever saw was Don Norman reading from a text with no slides.
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The best “talk” I ever saw was given by Barack Obama reading from a teleprompter
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So, it’s ok for people to read from a script if that’s what suits them? They can loosen up with experience if appropriate.
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Replying to @sf105
My point is: People believe reading from a script is easier. I think that’s not true, at least not if your goal is to deliver a good talk

Nov 1, 2018 · 8:23 AM UTC

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Replying to @stilkov
Maybe so, but if that’s what it takes to get people to speak at all, they can improve later.
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Agreed.
Replying to @stilkov @sf105
1/ From my limited experience at tech conferences I think plenty of people under-prepare; it’s definitely a hard job to make something persuasive and engaging but I think sitting down to write an essay of what you *actually* want to convince people of is a good way to start
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Replying to @stilkov @sf105
2/ i feel like my time is undervalued if people start with 15mins of speaker background or say that they’re going to wing it (except for the rare speaker I’d be happy to just hear stories from all day long)