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Comment by ValentineC | Hacker News Reader

> Finally, watch out for events that put video of their sessions online. Having a couple of YouTube links of you doing your thing in front of a live, appreciate audience can make all the difference when a programme committee is looking at a handful of talks and can only accept one of them.

This, very much this.

I run a paid, one-day, mid-sized conference every year, and with only so many slots, we find it very, very difficult to risk choosing people who don't have videos of themselves speaking.

A short meetup talk or a lightning talk at a different conference could make all the difference towards being selected, because we need to know that you're vaguely capable of conveying what you want to share to the audience.

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My professionally produced video is a bit old though I have others recorded on a webcam. I don't know how often they're looked at (and I know a lot of people on the conference committees) but it's certainly useful to have at least something.

I don't want videos of me online. Would an audio recording + slides suffice in your opinion? Or would you doubt it was really live in front of a sufficiently large audience? Idk how common fraud here would be

Personally I would find a video that's slides with audio just as compelling as a video where the speaker was visible in terms of helping me understand if that person could give a competent presentation or not.

I feel like if you don't want videos (and I assume photos) of you online then speaking at a conference is probably not the aligned action to pursue that goal

Not sure if culture is different at other conferences but the ones I've been to had talk status recorded or not recorded. Requesting that pictures of you aren't shared online seems to be a common enough request

If you're the sort of private person who doesn't want a big online presence - why bother to speak at a software conference? Especially a conference big enough they're selective about who they allow to present?

About 90% of speakers at big events are there to promote their product, or to get their company's name out there for recruitment purposes, or to promote their consultancy, or to build their personal brand. If you don't give a shit about any of that stuff, maybe you don't need to bother?

I'd probably put it more diplomatically. But if you're speaking at a conference, there may be video, audio, and photographs which may be posted online and may be part of the terms you sign up for when you register. If any of that bothers you, you may not want to speak.

I imagine it'll go against your talk getting into the shortlist.

But there are some conferences that ask and respect your preference whether you'd like the video recording to have your face or just the audio. But I have yet to see a conference that go as far as asking the audience to not take photos of the presenter, so it's pretty much moot if you do not want your photos published at all.

i have seen presenters directly ask the audience to not take pictures. i think it's reasonable request, so i don't think it's a moot point.

> I don't want videos of me online.

This is just my personal opinion, but your expertise in your proposed topic would have to be really good (i.e. you've written a few blog posts about it) for a conference to overlook this.

Recorded videos act as a portfolio for both potential speakers and conferences alike. I think some first-time attendees rely on past videos to determine whether a conference is worth going for.

(That said, we've set videos as unlisted for people who think that they've bombed their talks before — think leaving the stage in tears because the Q&A was harsh — but that's just goodwill.)

I don't know how often recorded videos are viewed--conference committees have to wade through a lot of applications.

But conference presentations are basically public events and if that bothers you, you should probably reconsider doing one. (Yes, per parent, if there's a real disaster--and those happen--they may be deep-sixed but I wouldn't count on it.)

> I don't know how often recorded videos are viewed--conference committees have to wade through a lot of applications.

For most conferences that do blind-rating first, only in subsequent rounds when the programme is being put together.

How common is that (outside of academia maybe -- which I have little familiarity with)?

Certainly when I've been on conference committees we tended to know a lot of the presenters and wouldn't have wanted to just rely on submissions. We knew who were experts on specific topics or were just good presenters.

Thank you for the thought you put into this. It's really frustrating when a speaker has an accent so strong it's unintelligible.

Okay, but what about the first time?

You can record yourself speaking about some topic. The barrier to entry to making a video online these days is very very low.

Local meetups are very easy to get selected into, and they often have two or three speakers lined up, with a balance of speakers they know and are experienced, and new speakers.

Most of the time, the organizers are squeezed to find a speaker, so you are pretty much guaranteed to be offered a slot if you just ask the host.

> Okay, but what about the first time?

Speak at your local meetup, and record yourself doing so if the meetup doesn't record the talks!

Meetups often have trouble finding speakers (well, many of the non-AI ones here do), so it's a win-win for both the meetup organisers and the budding conference speaker.

Another way to get your name out there is to speak at free (/low-cost), multi-track conferences like FOSDEM. Free conferences tend to be more receptive of first-time speakers because attendees didn't pay hundreds of dollars for their tickets.

(If you are an up-and-coming speaker, please don't let my comment discourage you from submitting their proposals to larger conferences. Some conferences have the resources and willing alumni to run speaker mentorship programs.)

> I run a paid, one-day, mid-sized conference every year, and with only so many slots, we find it very, very difficult to risk choosing people who don't have videos of themselves speaking.

Some people are much more privacy-conscious than others and thus at least don't want more videos of themselves online than what is absolutely necessary.

It's the circle of those people even close to intersecting with the one for aspiring conference speakers?

New goal: to speak at DEFCON while wearing my dr doom mask to hide my identity

do you record and post videos of your own?

The conference typically does it anyway, and otherwise you can ask a friend in the audience, or make a new friend who's willing to, or put a tiny tripod somewhere with your phone in camera-from-lockscreen mode. The point is showing that you can present on stage, so audio is most important I'd assume. It doesn't have to be amazing quality/angle

I'm not asking "do you think how good you are in your own criteria"

I'm asking "with such demands do you give back as well by recording and publishing talks people give to you?"

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