Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting many exceptional speakers on the Nordic APIs stage. Our most memorable talks span architectural deep dives, anti-patterns, emerging trends, personal journeys, and hard-earned lessons on what it takes to build great API platforms.

To the audience, these presentations often look effortless. But the truth is, there’s a lot of preparation that goes on behind the scenes. This is especially true for the talks that resonate with the audience the most. So what separates an average tech talk from a standout one?

We checked in with a few of our most well-regarded speakers to pull the curtain back on their process, from originating an idea, all the way through to rehearsing it and nailing it with confidence on the day. The result is a set of practical tips for crafting tech talks that land. While the tips come from the API community and are geared toward tech talks, much of the wisdom applies to any public speaking engagement, whether you’re a first-time speaker or industry veteran.

And if reading these conference speaking tips leaves you inspired to take the stage yourself, we’d love to hear from you. Consider submitting a talk proposal for Platform Summit.

1. Cater the Talk to the Audience

A good tech talk is catered to the event’s theme and audience.

This is top advice from Kristen Womack, principal product manager at Microsoft, building the Azure Developer CLI. She’s keynoted a whopping three Platform Summits, as well as spoken at plenty of other events, covering developer experience, APIs in AI coding, and other topics along the way. As she says:

“I begin by asking three foundational questions: Who is the audience? What is the one message I want them to walk away with? What problem am I helping them solve?”

2. Make It Relevant to Your Current Work

Designing a talk around something you’re personally excited about is a surefire way to extend your passion into your delivery and inspire the audience in the process. For many keynote speakers, this is a core part of their tech talk preparation.

Take it from Zdenek “Z” Nemec, founder and CTO, Superface.ai, a frequent keynote speaker who’s given inspiring talks at five past Platform Summits. “It’s always related to something I am working on right now,” says Nemec.

“I never submit a talk on a topic that I am not working on or not interested in, even if it would be a popular one,” adds Nemec. “It always complements and underlines the projects I am working on, or the vision I am walking towards.”

Adam DuVander, founder of EveryDeveloper and frequent Nordic APIs speaker, has a similar process. “Almost always, a talk comes out of something I’m already thinking about,” he says. This could be relevant to client work on developer best practices, or ongoing research into APIs and developer tools, he adds.

3. Have a Narrative Arc

Even though we’re talking about tech talks, basic storytelling principles apply. Your typical story structure has three to four acts, guiding the audience through an initial premise, a challenge, toward a breakthrough, and an eventual resolution.

“Even the most technical content benefits from storytelling where you have an opening problem, rising tension, an insight or breakthrough, and a meaningful resolution,” says Womack. “It keeps people engaged and helps them see themselves in the story.”

As DuVander says, it’s not simply enough to present some stuff you’ve been tinkering with. “Like any good technical content, it needs to have a hook, an angle, an opinion,” he says. “What’s the through-line that will keep people’s attention and give them something they can take action on?”

4. Have One, Clear Takeaway

Following that note on having a through-line, another top piece of wisdom is to focus on providing one core message that your audience will remember. Womack points to the concept of ultraspeaking, coined by Tristan de Montebello, who appeared on Lenny’s Newsletter, which inspired this idea.

“After learning about this concept, I started asking myself, after listening to other speakers, ‘What was their one message? What’s the one thing I’m taking away from this talk?'” says Womack. Often, speakers fall into the trap of presenting a lot of helpful information, but they don’t have a singular point that’s reinforced throughout the entire talk.

The through-line should be established upfront and reinforced at the end. “Leave them with a primary takeaway or action you want them to take,” says DuVander. “Don’t be afraid to repeat that takeaway after Q and A as your final words.”

For a particular example of this, consider the talk “MCP: What API Providers Need to Know.” The through-line was “context matters,” and the presentation made that message very clear upfront, in bold text, and mentioned it a couple of times in the talk. Stories and real-world examples bookend the presentation and back up that thesis.

5. Make It Enjoyable for You

“Enjoy giving the talk. That is it,” says Nemec, who credits Jakub Nešetřil, former Apiary CEO, for giving him that simple advice. “This is really the mantra that I follow with every one of my talks,” says Nemec. “If I do not enjoy it, nobody will, so just try to have fun.”

Making the talk enjoyable for you could equate to including easter eggs that you look forward to. This could be a surprising statistic that will change the audience’s preconceptions about a topic. Or, it could be offbeat humor or an unexpected picture that gets a reaction.

Whatever it takes to make your talk something you look forward to, rather than dread, is a solid move. Making your talk enjoyable aids memory retention and helps support a natural delivery, too.

6. Practice, Practice, Practice

As the old adage goes, practice makes perfect. And for star speakers, the rule of three prevails. “For me, my goal is to get to at least three rehearsals until I know I can just go to the stage and enjoy giving the talk,” says Nemec.

Womack takes an interactive approach to rehearsing, emphasizing the actual delivery and pacing. “I’ll outline the talk, share it with a few trusted peers, and refine based on their reactions,” she says. “Then I rehearse out loud to test pacing, transitions, and clarity.”

“Every stumble or awkward explanation is a signal that the idea needs to be simplified or reframed,” says Womack, adding that she builds slides at the same time. “The creative process of designing my slides to convey a concept helps shape my talk and what I delete, add, and refine.”

Sometimes, practicing cuts into conference nightlife — especially if your talk lands mid-event — but it’s almost always worth it to rehearse the night before. Nemec credits API advisor and frequent speaker Mike Amundsen for driving that lesson home, recalling a story from a past API conference:

“Ten years ago, at API Craft Detroit, the speakers just started enjoying a nice beverage at a local bar, the night was young, and the conversation was lively and fun. That’s when Mike stood up and said, ‘I need to go and rehearse for my talk tomorrow.’ The rest of us stayed, and we all regretted it the other day.”

7. Make a Script, but Don’t Read From It

It’s best to talk naturally without reading notes word for word. “Don’t try to perform perfection,” says Womack. A conversational tone with real enthusiasm for the topic connects far better than memorized lines.

However, this isn’t to say scripting can’t be a handy device for building confidence. For DuVander, it’s a core element of his iterative approach to establishing a talk and nailing the opening delivery, since first impressions really matter.

“My number one recommendation to any speaker: script out your first few minutes of a talk, because that’s when you’ll win or lose your audience,” says DuVander. “You’ll be more confident, which will earn their confidence, too.”

“Your first few minutes are the best time to grab the audience,” he adds. “I know exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it for my opening. Practice it enough so that it feels natural.” He also recommends working in some kind of interaction, even just a raise of hands, early on to get engagement.

On that note, Nordic APIs speakers have also used tools like Mentimeter to collect authentic reactions or poll the audience to uncover real-time insights. It’s a powerful technique but requires a bit more setup.

8. Include Real, Concrete Examples

Talks with concrete case studies typically land well, since the audience can see themselves in the speaker’s shoes and obtain practical, on-the-ground knowledge they can apply in practice themselves.

“Tech talks land when they connect ideas to real-world challenges,” says Womack. She recommends considering how your talk can unlock, inspire, or encourage the listener.

Concrete examples not only benefit technical authenticity but also help engagement. “I look for opportunities to make the talk feel alive: examples, real customer stories, and moments of humor or humanity,” says Womack. “If I can make the audience laugh or nod, I get the feedback I need that the concepts are landing.”

Nemec is especially proud of his talk Creating the New: adidas APIs from Platform Summit 2017. Co-presented with Oldrich Novak, a former member of the enterprise architecture team at Adidas, the talk provided an unprecedented look at building an enterprise API program at a multinational consumer-name brand.

“It was the best enterprise API program I ever executed, and we shared it on the stage,” says Nemec. “The reactions were overwhelming — I’ve never seen so many questions and follow-ups like on that day.”

9. Literally Stand on the Stage

No practicing, whether it’s at home or in the hotel room, really comes close to the real stage you’ll be presenting on. It just feels different. So, the best advice is to feel out the room and be ready for change, says Womack. “Stand on the stage before you talk,” she says.

Even small sensory changes, from the lighting to hardware accessories, can take you off course. As Womack shares: “Once before a talk, they added a loud fan to the room and, while this maybe seems small, it added additional processing for my brain that impacted the effort I needed for my talk.”

From the clicker used to advance slides to the placement of helper slides, things will be unique in that moment. So, it’s good to show up early to your talk to acclimate and run through how the environment might affect your flow. And, always: test your slides when possible.

10. Always Be Curious

When delivering a tech talk, if you have authenticity and honest curiosity for the subject at hand, it’ll be obvious and inspirational for the audience. “The best speakers are visibly curious about their audience and the problem space,” says Womack. “That energy is contagious.”

Sometimes, it’s what the conversation inspires afterward that makes the real impact. And, if you tap into this, it can inspire what comes next. “When I have hallway conversations with folks after my talks and learn what resonated, this gives me more input for future talks,” adds Womack.

If you’re a frequent speaker, try building on previously introduced knowledge. For example, Womack’s recent keynotes have progressed an AI theme. The first was around helping teams get started with AI APIs responsibly, and the most recent was around making good architectural decisions as AI becomes a permanent part of modern systems.

Continuity keeps a speaker and the community curious and engaged with tracking a trend as it evolves and matures. Just take DuVander’s Platform Summit 2025 talk, which smartly compared the history of API maturity to the psychological development of the human brain across various levels.

“I approached that talk like a ‘last lecture’ on APIs,” says DuVander. “With AI taking over the technology zeitgeist, I wanted the audience to see that we’ve experienced all of these problems before, so we already have the answers.”

How to Prepare a Tech Conference Talk

Everyone has a unique process for preparing developer conference talks — some prefer to finish a talk before practicing, while others prefer to rehearse aloud bits at a time and then make their slides iteratively. But the common threads emerge around using specific examples, having a clear takeaway, and rehearsing until you feel comfortable.

Starting from a solid conference talk proposal as a template can really help, too. Many of these same principles are what conference program committees look for when reviewing talk proposals.

Additional practical tips for conference speaking, like getting comfortable on the stage, scripting the early bits of your talk, and practicing deliberately, are secret gems that can take your conference talk to the next level — and perhaps to bigger stages.