Talk about the things you are passionate about. It doesn't matter if you feel like it's a cliche or over-represented topic. Experience and passion are way more important than the topic itself.
Keep the slides minimalistic and use images (but avoid videos). Explain everything in person through speech.
Practice. Make sure that the talk will not be too long or too short. Those are awkward.
Don't over explain, it's not a class. It's better to give an impression about complex topics to the beginner half of the audience than to bore the experienced half. Beginners will pick up enough to dig deeper into the topic at home.
About getting signed up for talks:
I am only presenting at local meetups (for now) and I am satisfied with it. This is my experience so far:
Getting signed up to a conference is pretty difficult (for the first time at least).
Getting signed up for a meetup is a piece of cake. In my country, there is usually a shortage of speakers. Just write an email to a few meetup groups, they will be happy about it.
Meetups have a very friendly tone, it's okay to be amateurish there.
I don't think you have anything to worry about, it will be a nice experience. Good luck!
About giving talks:
Talk about the things you are passionate about. It doesn't matter if you feel like it's a cliche or over-represented topic. Experience and passion are way more important than the topic itself.
Keep the slides minimalistic and use images (but avoid videos). Explain everything in person through speech.
Practice. Make sure that the talk will not be too long or too short. Those are awkward.
Don't over explain, it's not a class. It's better to give an impression about complex topics to the beginner half of the audience than to bore the experienced half. Beginners will pick up enough to dig deeper into the topic at home.
About getting signed up for talks:
I am only presenting at local meetups (for now) and I am satisfied with it. This is my experience so far:
Getting signed up to a conference is pretty difficult (for the first time at least).
Getting signed up for a meetup is a piece of cake. In my country, there is usually a shortage of speakers. Just write an email to a few meetup groups, they will be happy about it.
Meetups have a very friendly tone, it's okay to be amateurish there.
I don't think you have anything to worry about, it will be a nice experience. Good luck!
Thanks for the great advice, Miklos! I'm sticking with shorter talks at Meetups for now.
That's a really good point about running through the talk ahead of time to make sure it's the right length. I need to remember to do that.