DOP 314: Building Your Speaking Career From Meetups to Main Stage

Episode 314

Show Notes

#314: Geoffrey Huck joins Darin and Viktor to discuss the ins and outs of building a speaking career, starting from small meetups and leading up to major conferences. He shares his personal experiences, tips on overcoming fear of public speaking, and the importance of community engagement in the developer industry. Geoffrey emphasizes the need to keep slides minimal and engaging, and highlights the benefits of starting with small presentations to gradually build confidence. He also explores techniques for initiating conversations, handling stage fright, and continuously improving speaking skills. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, this episode provides actionable advice for anyone looking to enhance their public speaking abilities.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you get your first speaking slot?

Geoffrey Huck recommends a Toastmasters club on DevOps Paradox episode 314, or failing that, asking a meetup organiser for two minutes to practise. Viktor Farcic adds a reason to prefer meetups in this industry: they are more numerous than Toastmasters clubs, you can help out until you find the courage, and the audience already cares about your subject rather than being a general mix of professions.

What does it mean when your conference talk is rejected?

Geoffrey Huck reframes it on DevOps Paradox episode 314 as a rejection of the idea rather than the person. The organiser read an abstract and a title and judged that the audience would be less interested than in the other options available, at that moment and in that context. He treats the distinction as practical rather than consoling, since the response is to change the pitch.

How many slides should a conference talk have?

Geoffrey Huck’s answer on DevOps Paradox episode 314, after Darin Pope deliberately describes the worst possible deck, is to do the opposite of all of it: “You don’t want people to look at your slides.” The moment attention moves to the screen you have lost the room and may not get it back. A week later nobody remembers a slide, only three or four key ideas.

Does speaking often make you a better speaker?

Geoffrey Huck says on DevOps Paradox episode 314 that doing it is necessary and nowhere near sufficient, pointing at teachers who speak for hours daily for years and remain boring. Improvement requires stretching: if you stand behind the microphone in a flat voice, you can repeat that indefinitely without changing. His rule is to do the things that feel frightening, since fear marks the edge of your current range.

What should you do if you freeze on stage?

Geoffrey Huck advises on DevOps Paradox episode 314 that you describe what is happening. Tell the audience you were afraid of forgetting your talk and that it has just happened, then ask whether anyone can remember what you said a minute ago. Everyone knows it is frightening, so nobody holds it against you, and narrating the moment slows your thinking down and builds a connection.

Can an introvert learn to start conversations at events?

Geoffrey Huck describes it as a muscle on DevOps Paradox episode 314. Initiate three conversations in a row at one event: the first is very hard, the second hard, the third slightly hard, and then something shifts and you want to talk to everyone. He says the outgoing people he meets at networking events almost always tell him they consider themselves introverts who found that switch.

What is the DevOps Paradox podcast?

DevOps Paradox is a weekly podcast co-hosted by Darin Pope and Viktor Farcic, covering DevOps, platform engineering, and modern software delivery. Episode 314 brings in Geoffrey Huck, a software engineer turned speaking coach, to cover getting a first slot, reading a rejection correctly, what slides are for, and how to keep improving. Every episode page carries the audio, the video, and a full transcript.

Episode Transcript

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Guests

Geoffrey Huck

Geoffrey Huck

Geoffrey Huck is a former software engineer and IT consultant turned public speaking coach. He’s specialised in helping business owners and leaders with a technical background. People turn to him when they want to become more confident in social situations and deal with speaking anxiety. His approach mixes public speaking techniques with behavioural sciences.

Hosts

Darin Pope

Darin Pope

Viktor Farcic

Viktor Farcic

Viktor Farcic is a member of the Google Developer Experts and Docker Captains groups, and published author.

His big passions are DevOps, Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices, Continuous Integration, Delivery and Deployment (CI/CD) and Test-Driven Development (TDD).

He often speaks at community gatherings and conferences.

He has published DevOps Paradox and Test-Driven Java Development.

His random thoughts and tutorials can be found in his blog The DevOps Toolkit.