Rex Black will deliver a keynote address at PNSQC 2016. He shared his thoughts on how to make an effective presentation. When Black first began his public speaking career some 20 years ago, he says he battled such problems as stage fright and the anxiety that goes with putting one’s self out there in front of a few hundred people. But over time he improved. Today, he is in demand as a speaker both for the content of his speeches and his delivery of them. His observations on how to improve one’s presentation should prove useful to potential conference speakers.

Stage fright is normal: “When I started, initially I was scared. I’m not an extrovert. As a professional I was never afraid to share my opinion in business meetings with colleagues. But that’s a different environment from standing up there in front of a lot of people who are expecting you to deliver value on a specific topic. So that initial anxiety shouldn’t be too discouraging—most of us experience it.”

Be organized: “I don’t think my mind is that different from a lot of peoples’. Before I wrote my first book, my mind was sort of like a really messy but well stocked garage. Open the garage doors and there are piles of shovels and chain saws and rototillers, lots of stuff. But it was messy. That first book helped me organize my thinking about these software testing. I would strongly advise speakers to sit down and make sure their presentation is well organized and proceeds in a logical fashion.”

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Rex Black’s advice to presenters

Rex Black intensely dislikes making cold calls. Despite this, he has built a successful software quality consulting business over the course of the last 22 years. How did he do it? Through a dozen books, many articles, webinars, blog posts and in-person presentations, he shares his thoughts about software quality and testing with the larger world—and the business comes to him.

Black is the founder and CEO of RBCS, a Texas-based consulting company. He will deliver a keynote address at PNSQC 2016 in October. Even though he hasn’t settled on a topic yet, one can be assured his presentation will be controversial and lively, spiced with his ironic sense of humor.

There are many professional, and personal, benefits to getting up in front of an audience of ones’ peers and presenting one’s ideas on a subject of interest to the group. A poor presentation doesn’t advance one’s career, however, Black notes. So learning to be an effective speaker must be a goal of those who want to go down this road.

What are some of the advantages of making a presentation? Black lists three for others who are presenting or are contemplating doing so at conferences like PNSQC. 

Public exposure: “One of the major benefits of making a professional presentation is that it gives you exposure before the people you want to reach. Unlike writing a book or an article, you actually meet people. A presentation lets me have a conversation in real  time about their specific  problem. I can give them ideas and say, ‘This is one of the services we offer.’ It’s the self-initiated cold call. In other words, these people chose to hear me speak or to attend a webinar. I didn’t have to go looking for them.”

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The theme of PNSQC 2016 is ‘cultivating software quality’, but what does that mean? Does it mean software quality needs to grow like the tomatoes in my garden? Certainly! But let’s take a closer look at some of the similarities:

1. In my garden I need to break up the soil, and determine the properties of the soil to see what needs to be added, i.e. bone meal, manure, or other forms of augmentation to make the soil suitable for what will be grown. For software quality, a lot of preparation is needed as well. Depending on your deficiencies, you need to evaluate your testers, your software’s risk areas, tooling, amongst many things before you can really embark on the new season.

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