Presentations at KinkForAll unconferences are not like the presentations you may be used to seeing at other events. This page is designed to give you guidance for brainstorming about potential topics, preparing for your presentation, and sharing your presentation with the Internet after you pull it off spectacularly (because, with the right support, we know you will).
Get inspired
To get the most out of a KinkForAll event, you should bring what you love and share it with others. What are you passionate about? What makes you tick? What are you interested in? Do you have any questions you want people's help in figuring out? These are the sorts of things KinkForAll events are designed to facilitate conversations about. No topic is taboo, no idea is inane, no session is superfluous. :)
Watching videos from previous KinkForAll unconferences can provide a lot of inspiration. Someone else's presentation may spark comments or questions about a topic that you can elaborate upon in your own presentation, or you can use their topic as a jumping-off point to go in your own direction.
Getting ideas
Here are some brainstorming strategies that have worked for participants in the past:
- Look over the list of potential topics and interests other people have written on the sign up table. Add your own ideas and interests on your own row of the table so that others can do the same.
- Try writing out a list of topics that interest you, that you feel you have experience with, or that you would like to research more. It is likely that one or more ideas will jump out at you as potential presentations you could give.
- Talk to your friends about the upcoming KinkForAll. Are there any topics you regularly talk about with friends that tie in to KinkForAll's theme? These are sure bets for interesting topics.
- Expand on a short essay, explain the main points of a longer one, or explore a different direction on a topic you have already written about. Do you blog or write papers for work or school that have something (anything) to do with sexuality? If so, those can also be a good place to mine for topics.
If you are stuck for ideas or nervous about speaking in front of strangers or Internet friends, sometimes it can help to present on a topic you are already familiar with from a casual setting. Since KinkForAll is in some ways simply a large time-dilated conversation, you can adapt points from previous conversations with individuals to the group setting.
Have you already given a presentation at a past KinkForAll or other unconference? Consider doing a Part 2, more in-depth look, or related tangent to your earlier presentation. With only 20 minutes to speak, there is probably a lot more material available in areas you have already partially or generally discussed.
Determine your key points
KinkForAll presentations are a surprisingly short 20 minutes (learn why). This means you simply don't have time for an extremely detailed exploration about your topic. Instead, successful presentations have only a few main points—often no more than 2 or 3—and they get to these points very quickly.
Preparing for your presentation
Will your presentation be a discussion, or will you be making a short speech? The kind of presentation you want to give is only limited by your imagination, the time limit, and any additional venue rules (many venues forbid nudity, for example).
Some of the best KinkForAll presentations are group discussions, facilitated by you. As the facilitator, try to summarize the topic at hand in a few sentences to present the ideas for discussion. You might consider introducing them with a personal story. Then, compose some open-ended questions about the topic to get the conversation going. Here is an example of a previous KinkForAll session that was an open-ended discussion.
Make sure you're going to have everything you need. If you'll be using slides, be certain that your event's inventory will have a projector! If you don't see one listed on the event's inventory page and you can't bring one yourself (in which case you should add it to the inventory list), then you should request one by adding it to the event's needs list. Here's an example of a previous KinkForAll presentation that used a slideshow.
The people at KinkForAll events are always from an extremely diverse background. This means that you can't assume that your audience has a particular set of knowledge or experience or desire. Your will give a much better presentation if you take a step back and think about the way you frame what you're saying for those who won't immediately grasp jargon or other complex concepts or terminology.
Sharing your presentation with the Internet
At many KinkForAll events, participants bring cameras and other recording equipment. If you didn't record your own presentation, it's very possible that someone else did (unless you explicitly asked people not to record you, of course). In that case, find whoever it was that recorded your presentation and say hello. Give them your contact info and ask for theirs, so that when you go home you can exchange media.
Put that online, etc.
Make sure to tag your published media with KinkForAll and the event's specific abbreviation (tag), so your presentation can be automatically aggregated and collected at this and other websites.
(this section needs to be expanded quite a bit)
Comments (1)
DDog said
at 4:23 pm on Jan 26, 2010
Added a bunch to the "Get Inspired" section that either helped me come up with something when I was desperately trying to think of a topic the day of, or probably would've been beneficial if I'd started a bit earlier.
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