A Rant Against Conference Speakers: Stop Giving Talks That Waste Our Time

Conferences treat the stage like an honor. It isn't. Getting picked to speak tells you nothing about whether your talk is worth anyone's time. The bio, the applause walking up, none of it helps a single person in the room. Only the talk does. And most talks don't.

Here are four things you owe a room the second you take the mic.

1. Most Panels Waste Five Good People

Put five smart people in a row and give each one twenty seconds a question. You've built something shallow on purpose. Nobody can say anything real in twenty seconds, and nobody wants to be the person who disagrees, so everyone agrees politely and the clock runs out.

A good panel is an argument. You watch people push back on each other and end up somewhere none of them started. That almost never happens. What you get is five short speeches taking turns.

If the moderator won't let people actually disagree, there's no reason to run a panel. Give the best of the five the whole slot.

2. If I Can Read Your Talk, Why Did You Fly Me In

If you're just reading your script out loud, you could have emailed it. We showed up for the things a document can't do. A picture that finally makes the idea make sense. A structure clear enough that we always know where you are and where you're taking us. If your slides are your speaker notes in a bigger font, you're reading to us off a teleprompter.

And now there's the AI problem. People can tell. When every other sentence is "it's not X, it's Y," when the words are "delve" and "quietly" and "landscape," we know you didn't write it. Something else did, and you're reading it to us. If you won't put it in your own words, we won't take it seriously.

3. You Were Invited To Teach. You Showed Up To Sell.

The room gives you its attention because it expects to learn something. Spend that attention pitching your product and you've broken the deal, and everyone feels the exact second it happens.

Selling from the stage doesn't even work. The moment you switch into sales mode, people start doubting everything you say, including the parts that are true.

So give the good stuff away. Teach like you don't need the sale. That's what makes people walk up afterward and ask how to work with you.

4. Half Your Talk Is Wasting The Other Half's Time

Most talks are twice as long as they need to be, and it's the weak half padding out the strong one. The filler doesn't just cost time. It hides your best point under warm-up, backstory, and a third example you didn't need.

A long talk feels deep while you're giving it. From the seats it just feels long. Every minute of filler is a minute stolen from your one best idea.

So cut it in half. Find the single sentence you'd keep if you had thirty seconds and a dying mic, and open with that.

The Bill Comes To The Whole Room

Do the math once and you can't unsee it. Two hundred people, thirty minutes each, and you're spending a hundred hours of other people's attention that they will never get back.

That's why a lazy talk is expensive, even when it feels free to give. Every minute you couldn't be bothered to tighten gets multiplied by everyone sitting there.

The stage is a debt. Show up ready to pay it.  PLEASE.