Lightning strikes…
Into the sepia night, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from thelightningman's photostream
I recently became familiar with the concept of lightning talks and want to make you familiar as well. Basically a lightning talk is an opportunity for a presenter to present on his topic for a short time.
This short time frame (between 5 and 15 minutes) has some interesting effects. First of all it forces the presenter be brief and to the point otherwise his timeslot will be over before he knows is. Second of all it means that the audience is more willing to listen to a topic they would otherwise not be interested in. Don’t worry if you don’t like what you are hearing, there will be another subject in a couple of minutes. This is also reflected in the acceptance criteria for lightning talks. Sometimes it is enough just to edit a wiki page, sometime there is a small selection process based on a two paragraph talk outline.
Last but not least lightning talks are a great opportunity for people to present if they do not feel up to presenting a full talk or have not yet got enough material for a full talk.
Want to try it yourself?
At the moment both BruCon and Hack in the Box Amsterdam have lightning talk slots open. Both conferences will waive the entrance fees for those speakers participating in the lightning talks and they might even buy you a beer afterward.
I know I will be trying my luck at both conference and I hope to see you there.