Speaker HOWTO
Contents
Overview
We're using a platform called StreamYard to broadcast the talks. Speakers will receive an invitation to the StreamYard broadcast for their talk. StreamYard is a web-based platform -- nothing needs to be installed.
From StreamYard, the talk is broadcast to a YouTube live stream. Attendees view the YouTube live stream.
Questions are captured by our Discord bot and sent to the YouTube comment stream. The comments are made visible to the presenters by StreamYard.
What to do as a speaker
In preparation for your talk:
- Create a free StreamYard account, create a broadcast and check that your video and audio work, and that you can share your screen.
Shortly before your talk:
- Check the speakers room in Discord for the StreamYard broadcast invitation URL for your talk.
- Join the StreamYard broadcast session using your URL.
Give your talk:
- The session chair will introduce you.
- The session chair will add you to the broadcast.
- Present your talk (30 minutes).
Answer questions:
- After your talk, answer questions (10 minutes).
- If you manage questions yourself, please read them out aloud so that the audience can hear.
- If you would like the session chair to select and read questions for you, please let them know before the talk.
After the talk:
- The session chair should thank you for your talk & might make some conference announcements.
Lightning talks:
If you're giving a lightning talk, the procedure is the same as above except all lightning talk speakers will be invited to the broadcast at the start of the lightning talk session. Lightning talks are 5 minutes with no questions. Everything happens a lot faster. :)
What to do as a session chair
These are the steps for the session chair to remember. I.e. all the gory details.
Shortly before the talk:
- Login to the correct StreamYard account.
- Check that the broadcast for the talk has been created.
- If not, create it or shout for assistance. :)
- Enter the studio.
- Send the invitation URL to the speaker and anyone else you need to be in the broadcast.
At the start of the broadcast:
- Put up the holding slide (Brands > Overlays).
- Put up the talk title as a banner, "Up next: ... by ..."
- Start recording (this also makes the broadcast to YouTube go live)!
The talk itself:
- Help the speaker get set up if necessary.
- Play for time if the speaker is experiencing technical difficulties (e.g. make silly jokes, remind people about conference events they could attend, etc).
- Add the speaker to the broadcast.
- Introduce the speaker.
- Remove yourself from the broadcast.
- Control the broadcast layout -- if the speaker is more important, make them larger. If the slides are more important, make them the focus.
- Remind the speaker if they're running short on time.
- Remember that the talk itself should be 30 minutes, with 10 minutes afterwards for questions.
- Keep an eye on questions arriving from the bot.
Questions:
- Manage questions for the speaker if they asked you to, or let the speaker select questions to answer themselves.
- Make sure each question is stated before it is answered.
- If you like, you can select the comment with containing the question for display on screen via the StreamYard interface.
- Keep to time.
- Have a couple of questions to ask yourself in case no one else did.
Wrapping up:
- Remind people which talks are happening next.
- Make any conference announcements that need to be made.
- End the recording.
- Close the broadcast.
