A guide to successful FOSS conference presentations

- If you're comfortable speaking you should consider keeping talks "on hand" when you go to a conference, sometimes a person might not make it and people are looking for a fill in, or maybe a spare room opens up and someone decides to organize lightning talks or something. Some of the best lightning talks I've seen have been unrehearsed and done spur-of-the moment.

- Find out ahead of time if the venue has internet and make sure your presentation doesn't depend on it. If your presentation needs a network connection or something ask ahead of time so the organizers know your needs. This helps avoid "Can everyone stop checking Facebook so I can show you my thing?"

- I have a "sanity check" person in the audience that I always make eye contact with in the presentation. She usually gives me signals if I'm running behind, or rambling, or overusing one of my crutch words. She also makes a frown face when I use an acronym without explaining what it is, which can be handy!

- I also ask a friend to be a notetaker for me so if someone asks me a question I can't answer I have it documented so I can follow up later.

- At certain events there's a good chance that one of the maintainers is in the audience, when I'm answering a question I ask if someone from the project is present to give their input. This has a bonus of letting the audience know that someone from that project is there (so they can talk to that person) and the contributor has opened themselves up for beer contributions from the audience afterwards. Win-win.

- Don't be afraid to team up. Sometimes two totally different personalities can make a talk interesting for the audience. The buddy system also helps out when one person is stuck or fumbling, the other person can help them out there.

- Always remember to repeat the question when in a large room with AV equipment. Asking the person if you've answered their question after your response can be real handy too.

- Don't forget to thank the sponsors and the organizers, it's tough work!