EPISODE 045 - Career: How do I prepare a tech session?

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit.IT Podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and our topic of the day is how do I prepare a tech session? So for all of those who maybe plan to have a tech session, do a speech or maybe already doing it, I just want to show my insights. How do I prepare and what I think is a good session is about. There are tons of better speakers out there and maybe with better advices, but yeah, I'm the only one in this podcast so you get my opinion and my insights. And first of all is find a topic you want to talk about. Very easy. But in my opinion, also find a topic you want to talk about and you love. And on top of that, find the topic you want to talk about, you laugh and you work with best on a daily basis. So I will not talk about any receipts in cooking or maybe I will not talk about security stuff. So I talk about PowerShell, I talk about automation, I talk about automator of course, but that's things. I'm feeling comfortable that things I like, that things I work on a daily basis. I think that is a main thing. And I think you also see that passion in the tech, in the speech, the conference as well.

Michael Seidl: I also think that if you talk about something you don't... Like if you do something you don't love, I think that affects your way on the content, on the preparation and how to do that speech. And maybe as an example, I have a conference this week. So we're recording on Monday, April 7th, and they have a conference on Friday in Leipzig, Germany. So Experts Life Germany. So I have to travel on Tuesday. I have the whole Friday and they will be back Friday around midnight to Saturday. I'm traveling to, I'm away from home for two days and the whole preparation of the session. the examples, the idea, and then you go through that session constantly. And at least I do, I do the session for myself and I, and the only way I I will help the session only in my four walls in my room. And then I understand if it makes sense, if what I want to tell makes sense, if the story is okay. So that takes time. I will do the examples and I like to have a lot of examples and demos in my sessions. So this took me around two to three days to prepare the session. to do all that stuff and two days for traveling. And that's one of the shortest ways for conferences. So usually you have two plus days with everything, but Germany is very close and that's easy. And happily our nearest airport also flies to Germany again. So that makes it a little bit easier. So what I want to say, I spent five days to do a session for 45 minutes.

Michael Seidl: And if you do that for things you don't love, if you do things you don't like, I think it's really hard to spend that time to just do a session for 45 minutes. Okay. So that's what I wanted to say. Find a topic you love, find a topic you like and so on. for my example, I just talk about PowerShell. I talk about graph API, I talk about automator. I talked about get shit done. the podcast was founded out of a session called get shit done. So I only talk about things I like and that's then there is the passion that you can invest five days and just do a session for 50 minutes, 50 minutes or 45 minutes. Okay. So that's one of the most important things. Second one is, find a tech conference where you can speak. So the best session doesn't make any sense if you're not able to speak. So there lot of platforms out there that I think the most famous one is Sessionize. There a of other ones. are of called dictionaries. Yeah, dictionaries. No, not dictionaries. A list of conferences on different pages. So there's a Microsoft Community page. There's other pages. You just can Google or chat GPT it. There are lot of sites out there where the conferences are listed. Then you can apply as a speaker. So it's a call for speaker or call for content. And then you have to apply as a speaker. Mostly you can do three up to five sessions to apply for a conference. And after... After some period, you get the information you accepted or you're not accepted. And that's the way you get a speaker slot. And of course, here you have to write a good content, a good title, a good content. Some conferences are asking you what are the learnings of the sessions and everything. So here you need to spend some time to write a good proposal to be taken as a speaker.

Michael Seidl: And the third one is to do your session or to plan it and to do your session. And my opinion is, usually I have not many and not very fancy PowerPoints. I prefer to have a lot of demos and real life example. So my plan is to provide examples that the attendees can use after the session. So that's my thing. And I talk about nothing. I'm not a marketing person of Microsoft. Of course, I talk a lot about Microsoft. I'm a Microsoft MVP. So that's it. I'm not standing in front of telling people how cool Microsoft is. Of course, something is cool. But I also tell them what I don't like about Microsoft. I really try to that every single person has. learn something or can learn something in my conferences. So to get some insights, get some learnings, to get some code examples, to get some real life examples, and that's my goal. So everyone needs to learn something. so I do a lot of less PowerPoint, a lot of examples. And additionally, I tried to understand what kind of audience is coming and to prepare or change my conference, my session slightly to target the audience. for example, Graph API PowerShell is very random. Yeah. But if I am at Intune based conference, then I will not show examples on how to work with Exchange Online and Graph API. Yeah. So then I will change my topics and my content slightly to fit to the Intune area. If I'm more on an average conference, then maybe I will do some intro, some exchange, some Intune. So the main idea or the main topic of the session stays the same, but the examples and the experience and the topics

Michael Seidl: are slightly adopted to the target conference. otherwise, trust me, if you talk about Exchange Online in Intune conference, they will not be happy. So of course, you need to keep your main session idea, your main session topic. You cannot then talk about completely different stuff. But adjust your examples, adjust your demos, adjust your content slightly. the target audience. Just see what kind of audience will come. If it's an Intune related, of course it will be easy to match it for Intune guys. So that's it. Find a thing you want to talk about. Of course you have to apply to be a speaker and then for doing the speech, adopt the content to the target audience. I'm trying to interact with the audience, to have a conversation and everything and ask them about their experience. And what is very important for me, what I maybe forgot in the previous point, I talk about things I like, I talk about things I love, I talk about things I do in my daily business. And to talk about things I think I'm not so bad in. Okay. I'm definitely not the best PowerShell script. That's it. But I have a lot of experience and that's what it is about. I'm not doing sessions to be the most interesting person in the room. I'm doing sessions to spread my experience and to get feedback from the audience. I want to listen to them. I want to understand them and I want to maybe have a different opinion. That's fine. So I'm not. the one who knows everything in front and not the one who making the rules or something. I'm just talking about my experience, I'm about my failures, I'm talking about my customer project, how we did it. And that's the main thing. So if you have a different opinion, shout it out. Okay. And that's one thing I learned.

Michael Seidl: a lot of conferences and maybe from other sessions.

Michael Seidl: There are speakers out there, if someone tells in the audience that they did it in a different way, they're just shouting, not shouting in that way, but they're just trying to make them silent because then they're feeling, the speaker is then feeling he's not the pro anymore. Okay. That's definitely something I do different. If I'm here, I'm the one person who knows everything. Definitely not. I'm telling my story. I'm telling my experience. I'm trying to start a conversation. I'm trying to start a process of people thinking about what I'm telling and starting a process of they might find a better approach or better solution for a problem we talked about. that's What I love about those sessions, because then I can use that input and talk about the next session. Okay. So if you're one of my next sessions and you have a different opinion, don't hold it back, raise your hand and shout at me and we will talk. Definitely. Okay. So that's it for this week. I wish you a nice Monday, stay productive and see you next week. Bye bye.