I've been doing a *lot* of talks since lockdown, and I have been amazed by how smooth and low effort some are, and how painful others are.

For 95% of them, you are not paid. An hour of good content takes 8 hours to develop.

So, conference organisers, what can you do better?

1. Allow the presenter to use their own slide template and present from their own machine.

I average a slide or animation every 20 seconds. Don't make me use some weird tool that breaks animations, or worse, ask me to say "next slide".

2. Don't overdo it with the dry-runs and tests. If your platform works, then dialling in 15 minutes ahead of time is enough.

I've had to sit through two dry-runs before, taking up an additional hour of time.

3. State the time zone for times! I don't want to guess if you mean my time zone or yours.

And use a sensible format for dates, not the US format.

4. Choose a good platform. I've used some that are really, really awful. I know that big audiences can't just use Zoom, but some are really painful.

5. If you allocate Q&A time, have some ready-made questions! Not all audiences are vocal. Especially for first-time presenters, if the audience says nothing, it can feel quite disheartening.