There are a ton of infosec conferences throughout the world, which means there’s lots of opportunity to deliver research, ideas, and educational presentations.

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OWASP and Security BSides provide community support for small regional events. BSides launched in 2009 and celebrated its 1,000th event almost exactly 15 years later in July 2024.

So yeah, lots of opportunities.

All those events need speakers! Many conferences even provide resources for first-time speakers. Giving presentations is an excellent way to develop and practice communication skills. Of course, not everyone needs to (or wants to) present to a group of strangers. But those communication skills are equally useful in smaller group settings in a work environment.

Odds are good that you’ll find the need to present something about your work more than once throughout your career.

Here’s a recap of some past episodes and references.

Crafting CFPs

Be clear, avoid filler words. Generate excitement in the abstract and show why your work stands out.

An LLM might be helpful for a first draft, especially if you’re submitting to an English-language conference and English doesn’t come naturally for you. But LLMs are going to add a lot of filler and throwaway phrases – keep the writing concise, focused, and in your own voice.

Your voice is what makes an abstract stand out and a presentation more enjoyable to attend.

Drafting Presentations

There’s a ton of subjective preferences. But a lot of people agreed on avoiding walls of text in your slides, using humor in a way that feels comfortable for you to deliver (and move on from if it bombs), and crafting your message to reinforce a few take-aways rather than overwhelming the audience with everything you think they should know.

Practicing the Presentation

Practice. Practice with someone who will give constructive feedback.

If you’re going to do a demo, always have a recorded version ready.

Episodes

Pointers and Perils for Presentations (ep. 251)

Josh Goldberg talked about communication skills, putting together presentations, and the stumbles he’s made along the way. It’s a topic that should appeal to anyone who wants to speak at conferences.

No one wants to sit through a boring presentation. No one wants to deliver a boring presentation, either. Josh shared tips and techniques for creating abstracts for CFPs and drafting slides for success. John Kinsella helped round out the segment with several stories and advice of his own.

Creating Presentations and Training That Engage an Audience (ep. 257)

Lina Lau gave us examples of how she crafts and delivers presentations. We talked about what kinds of presentations keep our attention and the kinds that put us to sleep.

This segment also highlighted crafting presentations to a specific context and audience. Lina has given rundowns of APT activity to executives and board members, technical presentations at conferences, and multi-day training courses. Each of those scenarios requires a different approach in the level of detail, calls to action, and even interaction with the audience.

Communicating Technical Topics Without Being Boring (ep. 269)

Eve Maler shared recommendations for communicating technical topics to different audiences. This time we focused on the importance of communication skills at work. Be clear about the audience, develop an audience persona, empathize with it. CISOs tend to be a skeptical audience.

One of Eve’s points really stood out for me:

Don’t share with the audience everything you know, share what they can absorb.

Getting Your First Conference Presentation (ep. 271)

Sarah Harvey gave a conference organizer’s perspective. She shared some of her own techniques for crafting slides and giving a coherent conference talk. She also explained how conferences like BSides SF actively support new speakers by offering practice sessions and constructive feedback. Giving constructive feedback is its own skill and one that’s relevant to corporate environments in addition to conferences.

Sarah also had a great comment on inspiration:

For a while I always hated giving presentations, but that was because it was a topic I didn’t like.

Find a topic you like. Research it. Write down ideas. Share your work!

Subscribe to ASW to find these episodes and more! Then check out the previous topic recap on AI & LLMs.

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