Effect Days 2025 has been a blast 🚀
Back from another memorable experience at the @EffectTS_ Days, this time as a speaker 💯 I had huge expectations, but the conference went even beyond that 🚀
Second edition, this time with me as a speaker. Months of expectations and preparations leading up to last week.
Here is what happened behind the scenes 👀
Effect Days 2024
First edition, last year in Vienna. I had no doubts, and bought my ticket right away, no hesitation 🤝
It was also my first time attending a real conference (no meetups or similar, but a full 3 day thing)
That's when I discovered that conferences are made for meeting people.
Yes you get the talks, yes you get to learn a few things, but it's all offset by the new people you meet.
That's when I told the Effect team: next year I would like to come as a speaker 👀
Summer 2024
Preparations for a conference take a long time. The team reached out to me in September (6 months before the conference) 💁🏼♂️
Once again, I had no doubts. I jumped in straight away 🚀
Preparing a talk takes (a long) time
My assigned talk time was 10 minutes. Not much you can articulate in 10 minutes.
But I didn't grasp that yet at the beginning. So I built a 90-slides deck as first draft 🫠
At least I had no trouble choosing the topic, more or less (Effect on the Frontend).
A quick (and rushed) trial run revealed how I needed to shorten the talk (and reduce the message).
Revisions, countless revisions
As I started removing slides, the topic also shifted.
I had to focus the topic to a single and powerful message (instead of all the frontend).
I reduced the talk to Frontend: When, How and Why. But that was still too many slides 💁🏼♂️
So I broke it down to make it even more impactful, showing how I use effect on the frontend.
Feedback and trial run
As part of being a speaker, I had to submit a final draft of the slides 1 month before the conference, and a video of a trial run 2 weeks before.
The feedback from the trial run changed again the structure and purpose of the talk 🤦
I removed more and more slides, and instead decided to switch between VSCode and slides, showing the code instead of slides-only.
The last few weeks I spent all for rehearsal, fixing my points and any possible unclear message 🤨
Conference day
My talk was scheduled right after lunch, which turned out to be good since I had more time to connect and test my setup before the talk.
I was confident of the talk leading up to it, after all those refining and rehearsal.
But, the few hours leading up to my time I experienced some tremors anyway (for no conscious reason). Excitement mixed with trepidation. I guess a talk to 200 people still takes its toll.
10 minutes is not that long
A few take away from my experience:
- Make your content shorted than your time. I had content for 10 minutes, but as the end time starts approaching you feel the pressure. This forces you to cut content or rush it. Reduce.
- I switched between code and slides. This didn't help in connecting and looking at the audience, since I was constantly checking the screen to see if it was displaying the correct content
- The microphone was attached to a pedestal. This forced speakers to stay standing in one place, reducing the connection with the audience even further
- I missed (forgot?) a couple of key moment/punch-lines I had prepared for the talk. It was okay without them anyway, but not as planned
Overall a awesome learning experience. I like being a speaker, you will see me again on stage (soon) 🚀
I cannot recommend the Effect Days enough (and generally any small conference about a technology you enjoy) ✨
Effect on the frontend By Sandro Maglione @SandroMaglione
Back home, back to work now 🫡
See you next 👋