Effective talk: Make a Talk, Panel or Session for GDC
Year of Talk: 2023
Pillars the team looks for:
The team determines how well the talk helps different audiences.
When planning out the presentation, build some core pillars of the talk and how it relate to the audience they would be presenting to.
Make sure the information you're presenting is valid information that is useful and helps the core pillars of the talk.
Criteria that get rejected:
If too little information is given to viewers. It won't be automatically rejected but it does not help the presenter's case on why it's important.
When presenting the talk idea with the reviewers it's important to give more information and actually talk about what you want to have in the presentation. Helps them determine if what's going to be presented is useful enough and if there is enough information.
Submission process:
Starts by asking developers to submit presentation ideas in a 2-month process. Where the presenters have to fill out all the information about the talk and why people would come to the talk.
After this reviewers will go over the information for all the presentations to see what people want to present.
The reviewers then meet up in person to talk about the different talks they saw and try to see which talks show the most promise and which ones might need more information before giving the ok. A list is created with the reviewed talks for later review.
The next phase is when the people whose talks have been accepted onto the list of talks so that they can refine the talk as much as possible.
Any comments that the reviewers have for the talk are then passed along to the presenters so they can start improving their talk. At the same time, one of the reviewers becomes a mentor for one of the presenters to help them process the comments and improve the talk. (Normally this process takes 4 weeks.)
After this point, if the reviewers feel like the talk has advanced and will be ready for GDC then it's officially accepted. At this point, the presenter will need to finish making the presentation to be ready for their GDC slot.
What happens if a new GDC talks seem very similar to previous GDC talks:
It is hard to nail down for the reviewers to know what to do 100% of the time.
They consider how long ago was the original talk as well as how much might have changed over the years. There might be a lot of new information that is going to be included that people might not know about.
The team can also push the presenter to talk in a different direction around the same topic. And give the previous talk as context and as a jumping-off point.
Would a Startup benefit from presenting in GDC:
If the idea is to increase the visibility of the brand then it's more useful to sponsor another talk or a room.
However, if the idea is that the company has some knowledge that they wish to share with more people then it would be a good idea to create a presentation.
Common Misconceptions about the GDC proposal process:
Sending the marketing pitch for the talk to the reviewers when they need a more detailed version of the presentation to help properly review it.
Sending information to reviewers as bullet points might be how you will read the information but it might not give all the information that will be presented to the audience. Help make a connection between why the information is important and everything you plan on presenting.
Give an outline of when you would present different information. This helps better understand when everything is meant to be presented.
It's not expected to have the talk to be fully complete but if you risk it by putting in very little information then it will greatly lower your chances of getting a talk. Unless somehow the team is desperate for more talks in that area. But they will still ask for more information.
How to know if you have 30 minutes or 60 minutes of content to present:
Talks are divided into three programs: Core concepts (From Wednesday through Friday accepting lectures, panels, and round tables), Summits (Monday through Tuesday accepting lectures and panels), and Career game seminar (Friday accepting lectures and panels).
If inexperienced with public speaking or lectures then recommended talking for 30 minutes.
When you outline the presentation then do a practice run and test yourself to see how long it takes.
During the mentoring session, it will also come out how to better explain the presentation. It will also help to nail down how much time you might need for the presentation.
If the timing doesn't fit either then make sure you determine what are the core pillars for the presentation and then make sure to condense the talk to better fit into 30 or 60 minutes.
When to do 60 minutes:
When you have more experience with this type of talk it lets you be better prepared to work out a full 60-minute talk.
At times it still might be useful to only do 30 minutes. As it forces you to make sure that all the information you're giving is dense and actually useful to the public.
By trying to go for a 30-minute talk instead of 60 it also means that the audience doesn't get tired or that the lecture is too long.
If the presenter has a bunch of technical information it needs to present then it can force them to take the full 60 minutes.
Allowing previously presented talks:
The team doesn't allow repeated content from previous years or other conferences.
It might be allowed to get a previous talk and then expand on it with new information.
Accepting talks that have negative information about sponsors or other studios:
Having the presenter talk with their own legal and PR teams first to see what they can or cannot say. Useful in general in case one of the teams decides that the presentation has too much sensitive information.
The team works with presenters to talk and be as abstracted as possible. It helps make it seem like more general information instead of specific companies. An example is talking about ticketing software instead of Gira.
How to structure a talk:
Being as hypercritical of the different information that's going to be in the presentation to make sure it makes sense in said presentation.
Some people can get comedy to work well in their talks but it's not required.
Find ways to show off your personality as it helps you connect with the audience and the material better.
If you are inexperienced with doing talks in a similar structure then try to do as many practice runs as possible alone and with different people. Helps you get comfortable with the material as well as presenting.
Also, work on how you talk, it can be quite noticeable when someone is reading information out of a card instead of talking about information they already understand. Can help with making the talk sound more interesting overall.
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