"All of the Lightning Talks were delivered by non-professional speakers. They followed a murderously difficult format: you get 15 slides which get auto-advanced every thirty seconds, and that’s it. You might think that means you can get away with slapping together something in an hour: oh no. In discussions with my fellow lightning talkers, we agreed that there has been something of a “lightning talk arms race”: the two talks I was most impressed by took over 24 hours to prepare, and mine took at least twelve solid hours over two months, with probably half of that being rehearsal until I could literally count out thirty seconds with a prepared spiel delivered in a voice other than my own."
Comments
"All of the Lightning Talks were delivered by non-professional speakers. They followed a murderously difficult format: you get 15 slides which get auto-advanced every thirty seconds, and that’s it. You might think that means you can get away with slapping together something in an hour: oh no. In discussions with my fellow lightning talkers, we agreed that there has been something of a “lightning talk arms race”: the two talks I was most impressed by took over 24 hours to prepare, and mine took at least twelve solid hours over two months, with probably half of that being rehearsal until I could literally count out thirty seconds with a prepared spiel delivered in a voice other than my own."
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/10/15/lessons-learned-at-busin...