Field Notes 001 - A practical guide to enhancing your professional profile through conference speaking

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7 days ago
7 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

In collaboration with two other OHT fellows, I've formed the OHT Fellow Advocate Group. Following the principle of "see one, do one, teach one," we'll share our expertise in professional profile building over 18 months to help others navigate this journey.

This is our first field report and includes questions asked by the other Advocates.

If you have any questions please get in touch.

A practical guide to enhancing your professional profile through conference speaking

What we did

The Data Science Festival, held twice yearly at CodeNode, has been running for eight years and features highly competitive speaker slots. I had always wanted to contribute more to this supportive community, and last month, Dina Al-Alami and I got our chance. The experience and feedback were incredible—we can't recommend it enough.

From start to finish, Dina and I invested five full days in this process. This journey—from selecting the event to delivering the final presentation—included convincing each other, pinpointing our topic, preparing our pitch, conducting supporting data analysis, building our assets, and refining through rehearsals.

Why put in all this effort?

A talk is more than a presentation—it's a powerful platform for connection, to engage with your audience, build your professional brand and form meaningful relationships with fellow speakers both backstage and through event networks. While it's your chance to shine, remember it's just one moment.

Define your goals first: What impact do you want to make and how will it benefit you? Consider whether you want to showcase your current expertise or develop your skills as a persuasive communicator.

Though I enjoy sharing ideas, client confidentiality limits what professional work I can present. I'm inspired by talks that demonstrate best practices outside traditional settings. These spark ideas for unique projects that showcase my working methods.

Prospecting:

Q. Who’s open to speakers and where should I speak?

After deciding to speak, give yourself plenty of time—up to a year—to find the right opportunity. Don't pressure yourself; it's not an obligation. The ideal outcome is wanting to go and deliver other, even better talks after this one.
Beyond professional organisations, search Eventbrite and ask colleagues and friends about events they enjoy attending. Look for storytelling-focused events like The Moth, and create a shortlist of six potential venues to target.
Be the audience - if you can go to the event prior, go. Say hello to the organisers, see how it works, observe the flow and ask other people what they’re hoping to get out of it, what they’re interested in?

Q. How do I know if I should be putting myself forward to speak? Am I ready?

Good questions, there’s two aspects to consider when answering this, the message and the delivery.
- the message
  - The event organisers are best positioned to determine if your message fits their event. Give them that opportunity by submitting your proposal. If they decline, request feedback—it's valuable insight for future submissions. They may even suggest other events better suited to your topic.
  - Before you approach, make sure you prepare:
    - Research their previous events, speakers, and any follow-up social gatherings.
    - Study their literature—especially any formal submission process—to understand their key themes for the upcoming year.
    - If uncertain, reach out to the organizers directly. They often run multiple tracks of talks simultaneously. A quick 15-minute chat can help you understand which track best fits your topic.
    - When you do reach out, have a clear idea of your potential contribution. Be ready to answer: Who are you? Why does this event interest you? What impressed you about their previous events? What topic would you like to discuss? What do you want the audience to learn?
- the delivery:
  - set yourself up for success. If you feel nervous about presenting solo, you might need to build more confidence in your subject matter first. Consider co-presenting with someone who has complementary knowledge to share the load. Or, like a stand-up comedian, start with smaller, less intimidating venues to refine your material.

Casting:

Q. Should I speak on my own or with someone else?

Co-presenting helps share the workload and provides built-in feedback during preparation. Be upfront about how you each want to use the talk to showcase your skills.
Support each other as critical friends and evaluate if the effort will be worthwhile.
We found the perfect match when Dina joined the 'hello-my-name-is' OHT Slack channel. Her experience with career transitions aligned perfectly with our OHT-LDN Shift series, and we really enjoyed presenting together. Knowing we could rely and riff on each other led us to pursue speaking at DSF to share our respective insights.

Pitching:

Q. How do I pitch the idea?

Well if you’ve already contacted the organisers, you are already on your way there.
With the previous prep work you should have a good idea of the audience, the opportunity and your motivation for being a part of it.

Our goal was ambitious and specific: to break into the premier league—

the Data Science Festival. We needed to develop a clear theme and takeaway, to find the juice that was worth the audience’s squeeze (into our room which would no doubt be bursting at the seams).

“The technology sector is contracting and shifting, forcing “Shifts” and beyond attrition, the top 25% even in downturns, high potential employees move. 75% of industries are reporting increased turnover amongst these. Careers aren't static or linear. You collect skills, experiences and practices that equip you along the way. We decided to theme our talk around the idea of preparing for a trek.”

“Career Trekking across the Data Landscape”

We were halfway to responding to the DSF’s call for Speakers. We had to ask ourselves:

What fresh knowledge would benefit our audience?
What questions might the talk inspire?
Logistics —would a live demo enhance our message, or would a controlled environment work better with follow-up technical demonstrations?
Engagement tools like polls and animations, would they help or hinder?
Get tactical - consider timing. Our talk worked perfectly before lunch, offering attendees thoughtful content and a welcome break from the more technical presentations.

Then we gave ourselves a healthy dose of so-what? We got critical and worked together to refine and clarify our proposal.

GOAL - we scored!!!

THE WEEKS BEFORE

MEDIA KIT:

The event organiser will request a profile photo, company logos and an "about you" section— 150-200 words is ideal. Don't simply summarise your CV. Instead, tell an engaging story about yourself that reveals your background, expertise in the topic, and personality. Make it clear why attendees should spend their valuable time at your talk. These are useful cues when selecting the profile photo.

They will also share flyers, social media banners and request you post about the event through any active promotional channels you have. Again think about your goal and the tone of your talk when you write these posts.

ADAPT:

Prepare thoroughly and edit well. We realized that much of the data analysis I had prepared wasn't ideal for engaging the audience during the talk—so we pivoted to make our presentation more audience-focused. Instead, I shared the analysis scripts and their outcomes after the event, which worked better for everyone.

Make friends with the tech support, offer to give them your slides early and bring a back up USB of slides, this will allow them to check your images all work on projector and help you to figure out what to do if they don't.

On the day

GET THERE EARLY - find your room, introduce yourself to the floor manager and ask them if there is anything they want you to know. Also ask, if they have time, can they note which slides people take photos of and can someone take a couple of photos of you in full flow.

Take a seat in different places in the room and watch earlier talks if you can.

GO TO THE GREEN ROOM - meet your fellow speakers, ask them about their talk and try not to try and cram - what you know now is enough, drink water and use the bathroom. Even if it’s just to go and breathe.

Q. How do I not get too nervous?

Expecting to not be nervous is unrealistic. When the nerves appear, say ‘there you are’ why aren’t you registering as excitement?” Same chemicals taking a different route through your brain. Find your calm-down strategy - for me it’s 5 slow, big breaths before I start and every time a wave hits during, a couple more big deep breaths.

Q. How do I read/engage the room?

If you're asking this question, it shows you care about the audience experience. If you've written an honest description of your talk in the promotional materials, then attendees have already self-selected—they're telling you they're interested in what you have to share. Build confidence from every person who shows up to hear you speak. For mandatory meetings (like M&Ms), focus on delivering valuable content: make sure it's impactful, concise, and your graphs are clearly labeled. Most importantly, anticipate and prepare for both obvious questions and potential curveballs.
Be close to your allotted time. Make sure there’s someone in the room giving you a 10 mins and 5 mins until questions sign and check where they will be in the room.

Q. How do I handle questions at the end like a pro?

Think about what you might be asked, generally speaking it will either be an elaboration on a point in your presentation or adjacent information and where to source that. Prepare for those. Remember that it is best to follow up, but also giving an educated guess gets you into a conversation with the questioner, and who knows what new opportunities that might lead to.

The Benefits

Q. Do speakers get free tickets? - yep and a plus one. It’s a nice way to extend some professional thanks, by sharing this with someone.

Q. How do I make it OHT? Or tie it to an OHT group cause/agenda.

If mentioning One Healthtech will strengthen your submission and your message, then use it. At the DSF we mentioned OHT as a place to make professional allies and within our speaker profiles. Also if you are a member of other professional bodies and it’s relevant, share.

The afters

Be sure to personally, thank everyone who helped make this opportunity possible. Thank you!

SOCIAL POST - Celebrate your achievement! Give shoutouts to fellow speakers and share brief highlights from talks that resonated with you.

WRITE UPS - Keep the momentum going! Document your talk and insights in articles like this one—they're valuable resources for others and for your own growth. Most conferences provide recordings that you can share Take time to watch your presentation later to identify areas for improvement and refine your speaking skills.

Good luck!