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Comment by tome | Hacker News Reader

> Running overtime is the one unforgivable error a lecturer can make.

This is tangential to the content of the article, but ... I'm continually astonished by the number of speakers who seem to be comfortable (largely at conferences) running over time cutting into their question time, the time of the next speaker, or even worse, lunch! Presumably it's not just me and Rota who feel this way, but it seems like there must be a large contingent of people who are very easygoing about it and quite happy to overrun or listen to overrunning speakers. I would be interested to know the thoughts of other HN readers.

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At most conferences, the people speaking are not professional speakers, and as such I don’t mind them running over.

In my experience, it’s hard to time a talk correctly, even with multiple run throughs ahead of time. Standing up in front of a big crowd, even if I’ve got a stop watch running I can end up going far too quick, or far too slowly, and end up with tunnel vision where I fail to identify and correct the mistake.

Are _some_ of the speakers doing it intentionally? Probably. Did some just fail to prepare? Almost certainly. But things come up, and in the most charitable case, they just stood in front of a bunch of people and communicated something they thought was important. I applaud them for that, and move on.

I've always thought that conference talks should have the traffic light system that you get a Toastmasters.

IIRC it's green while you've still got plenty of time, orange when you're within x minutes of the scheduled end, and red once you're at the scheduled end.

I've found (from Toastmasters) that a nice bright light at the back of the hall is much easier to respond to than a clock or something counting down

So true! I always rehearse my talks several times with the stopwatch on my phone sitting on a nearby desk, but I feel like that’s not an obvious thing to people who are getting started and don’t have theatre or public speaking experience.

It’s a lot like that (probably misattributed) Hemingway quote “If I had more time I would’ve written a shorter letter.”

Correctly timing a talk is one thing. Blowing past time limits as if they don't exist is another one altogether.

If your talk is the last one before lunch, wrapping up a little early, say 10 minutes, is almost mandatory. You're not going to have the attention of hungry people if you take those last few minutes to talk anyway. Just my 2¢ from in-person conference experiences.

When it's time to go to the next talk, I abruptly stand up and walk out, even if I'm sitting at the front. It's not like the organizers aren't furiously flagging the speaker or anything.

Speakers like to listen to themselves. As a lecturer, I am aware and bring this to each class:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Temporizador-temporizador-magnét...

Be aware that following this link to a nice electronic timer may change your global Amazon language preference to Spanish.

crap how do I fix this

edit: ok closing and reopening amazon did the trick :)

In almost all the talks I have physically attended, running overtime I observed is closely correlated to how visibly the audience start showing signs of tiredness no matter what the topic is.

I feel like it is not about 52.x minutes, it is more about expectations. If the talk is 20 minutes the audience expects it to be over by 20 minutes.

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