#132 - Rock the Tech Stage With Public Speaking and Killer Demo - Oscar Santolalla

[00:01:03] Episode Introduction

Henry Suryawirawan: Hello again, my friends and my listeners. Welcome to the Tech Lead Journal podcast, the podcast where you can learn about technical leadership and excellence from my conversations with great thought leaders in the tech industry. If you haven’t, please subscribe and follow the show on your podcast app and also on social media on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. And to appreciate and support my work, please subscribe as a patron at techleadjournal.dev/patron, or buy me a coffee at techleadjournal.dev/tip.

My guest for today’s episode is Oscar Santolalla. Oscar is the author of “Rock the Tech Stage” and the host of the “Time to Shine” podcast. In this episode, we discussed techniques on how to deliver a successful tech presentation and demo. Oscar broke down the elements of a successful tech presentation, and in particular, explaining in-depth the three essential elements of passion, storytelling, and interaction. Oscar also shared some practical tips on how to deliver a killer product demo, some presentation slides hacks, and insights on how we can use our voice more effectively when delivering talks.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. And if you do, I would appreciate it if you can share this episode with your colleagues, friends, and communities, so that more people can also learn from this episode. Please also leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, which I will highly appreciate. Let’s go to my conversation with Oscar after a few words from our sponsors.

[00:02:58] Introduction

Henry Suryawirawan: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another new episode of the Tech Lead Journal podcast. Today, I have with me a guest named Oscar Santolalla. Oscar has written two books around public speaking and doing tech product demo. So as you can tell, today, we’ll be talking more about public speaking and also how to do product demo.

Also as a side job, like me, Oscar has his own podcast called Time to Shine, which is a podcast with a theme around public speaking and how to deliver talks and things like that. So maybe we’ll touch on a little bit about his podcast as well and what he learns throughout that journey.

So, Oscar, thank you so much for this opportunity. Looking forward for our conversation so that we can get upskilled about public speaking.

Oscar Santolalla: Hi, Henry. It’s a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for the invitation.

[00:03:43] Career Journey

Henry Suryawirawan: So Oscar, let’s start with maybe telling us more about your background, your career journey or any highlights, turning points that you think are worth to share with the listeners here?

Oscar Santolalla: Sure. Okay. We can jump to the year 1999. So it’s almost the end of the decade and the century. Actually, sounds very far from now at this point. At that year, 1999, I was graduating from the engineering school in Electronic Engineer. And at that time, if the ones remember, that was the telecommunication boom, which meant that, biggest part of the world, they were putting so much infrastructure in fiber optics and also KTV and mobile obviously. The internet that had been already commercial for a few years in the early and mid of nineties was becoming massively available all over the world. So that was happening during those years. That was a time quite exciting for us who were studying electrical, electronic engineer like me and my friends.

So at that time, I got interested in couple of things. One was networking, which was very hot topic at that moment. And of course, cybersecurity. So I start having some jobs, enjoy my very first year, professional years. Networking, technical support. I find very excited solving problems. People have some problems, like we came there, tried to find a solution, and yes, we find a solution. So that’s very rewarding, having those feeling. So at that time, I thought my future would be becoming more and more a technical expert, like networking expert. That’s how I saw myself for the future at that time.

But there were turning points, as something that you definitely want to hear and have probably heard from many other guests. I decided to look for a scholarship to study a master. Ultimately, I won a scholarship to come to Finland and to study a master. And the master was in, first of all, I switched from the electronic electrical to the computer science school in which the degree was in mobile computing and security. And the years later, I stayed in Finland and I found different type of jobs. When I tried development, didn’t go so well into the development. In my case, I also worked few years as a product manager, also sales, until I found actually a type of job that really fit my skill sets the best and also my interest the best. And it is the one I have today. It’s a sales engineer.

So the sales engineer role that today I have in the company I work is called Ubisecure. Yeah, somehow it has a combination of the skill sets in my interests, because for the ones probably not everybody familiar with that role, I can give a briefing of that. A sales engineer, first of all, is mostly for a role that exists in software and technology company, not only software, that have big products, complex products. Typically B2B. So typically, it’s not a consumer product. There are exceptions, of course. Because of that, the sales process, the sales cycle is long. So there are so many steps to close a deal.

So in those steps, at the very beginning, it can be someone who is not technical at all, just start a conversation with a customer, potential customers. But then there is a point in which a technical expert has to enter and has to solve any possible questions from the customers. Every customer has completely different set of requirements that have to be checked one by one and find a specific solution for them. So all this is the job of a sales engineer. Some tasks are, of course, giving some technical presentations to explain the product in a more technical level, also to do some product demonstration, sales demos. So all in all, that’s the job itself.

And I also do actually quite few things in Ubisecure. I also take part of being a presenter in the product training. So we do product training and we’re also part of that. And also I am the host of the company’s podcast. So there’s a podcast called Let’s Talk About Digital Identity. I’m the host of that. So my role is very wide, several tasks, and I enjoy very much doing that. So that’s what I do today in my day job.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thank you for sharing your story. I think it’s really interesting. So the thing that I picked from your sharing, the first is that if you didn’t find your passion job, I guess, right? So you started from developers, you also started from product manager, and then you found the true calling of your new role, which is a sales engineer. So I think the advice here for listeners is that don’t give up whenever you find a job that you didn’t probably thrive. Look for some other roles. And I think look at where it brought you, right? So you become like a public speaking expert. You also host a podcast. You also do a lot of product demos.

I worked with sales engineers a lot in my previous role as well. I think it’s one of the toughest job having to close the sales, especially if the product is a high expensive product and very complex. I think it’s never easy. So I really commend you for that.

Oscar Santolalla: Thank you.

[00:08:37] Writing Public Demo and Public Speaking Books

Henry Suryawirawan: I guess which brings me to the topic, right? You seem to be doing sales engineering and doing a lot of product demos. So you wrote the first book about product demo and the second book, which is about Rock the Tech Stage, which is more about doing public speaking for tech industry specifically. So tell us maybe the storyline, how did you come up with these two ideas of the book? Is there any storyline from your sales engineering role?

Oscar Santolalla: Yeah, of course, it came much earlier than thinking that one day I’ll be a sales engineer. So it also starts when I was still in Peru just a few years before coming to Finland. So I remember one moment, we were walking down the stairs of a building. I was carrying my desktop computer, my keyboard, mouse, office furniture. As you can imagine, we were moving out of an office. There was a rented office that we were moving out, because we run out of money, of paying that rent. During this, around two years, actually, I was an entrepreneur with a couple of friends. We had a very small startup. And that was actually the beginning of the end of that startup. My first startup that I had at that time. And looking back, it’s clear that we failed because we were not able to sell. We were not able to sell our ideas, to communicate effectively. So those were the main reasons. And that’s something that I felt like, “No, this has to be better”. I have to become a better communicator.

And then it comes many years later, while I was already in Finland. I was having one of these jobs that I mentioned when I was already in Finland. And I started to analyze the best talks, the best presentations, the best keynotes, the best product demonstrations from the most famous speakers in the technology industry. At that time, there are people like Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, Mikko Hyppönen here in Finland. So people who are really excellent and give inspiring presentations. So I started going very deep into analyzing why their talks were so good, why their demos were so good. So soon, I aside was creating all this tactical advice. Based on that, I decided to write my first book.

So that was like, okay, let’s try this. So I started this book. I call it Create and Deliver a Killer Product Demo. And I decided to create a crowdfunding campaign in Indiegogo, and it went for one month. Doing my best to promote it and sell it and get attention on my book fund. And I get around, I think, nearly 20% of the goal, which was not sufficient to continue with the project. Clearly, was not. So I had to make a decision if I give up and I give the money back to my supporters or fund my way to continue. So I decided to continue. And the following year, I was self-publishing the book. So I self-published the book, which was of course, a small victory at that time, something achieved.

Yeah, so it was good. I had a first version of that book. But something completely unexpected happened. A few months later, one executive from a publisher called Apress contacted me. They found this crowdfunding campaign. They found the video on Indi egogo and also they realized that I had finished the book. So I had my website for my book. So they decided to contact me and told me, oh, we realized this. So would you be interested in having a call with us, and to discuss a possibility of you writing another book or we can actually republish this book. So that was the beginning.

I republished the book with them and that led me the opportunity to have the second book, Rock the Tech Stage. So that was, let’s say, my journey of how I became a writer of this book. Both of them very focused on the technical audience, technology industry, how people can, in the first one, how to create great product demonstration. And the second one is much more general, how you can, how I call it, rock the tech stage. Have really amazing presentations that will inspire people.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. Thanks for sharing the story. I think it sounds really interesting, right? You started by Indiegogo campaign, a crowdsourcing platform. And then, you decided to self-publish and then, Apress, the publisher found you. I think you didn’t have to go through all this tech selling, I guess, to publish your book. But I think it also tells a journey where you actually know the elements, how to probably sell your so-called tech products, right?

[00:12:48] Elements of a Successful Public Speaking

Henry Suryawirawan: Which probably is a good segue to bring this topic. So what do you think are some of the elements of a great tech product demo or great tech speaking? Because you said that you have analyzed multiple people who have successfully delivered keynotes or product demos. So maybe if you can highlight some of the key elements that you think are most important for us to know about public speaking and tech demo in general.

Oscar Santolalla: Yes. So yeah, I would refer more to my second book, Rock the Tech Stage, because in that one I really start to pay attention what are among every single skill or trick or secret that the speakers have in their repertoire. So what are the top. So I decide, okay, I will find the top based on my analysis, and I will go deeper into those for the book. So the 10 that I have in the book are, I will read it. The first is Story. We have Killer Demos, plus related to my first book, Metaphor, Data Visualization, Passion, Props, Presentation Hacks, Interaction, Staging, and Memory. So those are the 10.

Now, obviously, every speaker combines a few of them. It’s very rare that somebody uses the 10. But most of them have at least three very, very strongly. They really are good in at least three, four of them. And there are different combinations, of course. I’ll start with the three essential secrets. And then we can go to one of the most, let’s say, advanced. Because there are some that are more basic that you have to have. And others which are more advanced if you want to go in one direction, specific direction. So for me, the three more essentials are, first of all it’s Passion. Second is Storytelling. And the third one is Interaction.

Now, passion. Actually, to be very honest, when I had to deliver a book proposal to Apress, I had 10 of the secrets, and passion was not there. At that time, I didn’t feel it’s something that we have to pay attention. But actually, when I started going deeper with the interviews, with the more analysis, yes, passion is in. Every single speaker needs passion. And the successful speakers have it.

Now, in terms of passion, there are two names. For instance, I can mention, this one lady called Katie Bouman. She was the leader of the team of computer scientists who created the very first image of the black hole, which was unvealed, I think, 2019, if I remember correctly. So she appeared in TEDx two years earlier, and she gave a amazing talk not only explaining complex topics, these algorithms, image processing, etc to a wide audience. Very eloquent. But also she made it with an enthusiasm that you very rarely see in speakers. And she was so passionate talking about the project itself, with the hope that that will become a successful project. And also how she love the space technology, etc. So she was really impressive on that. And I also noticed in some interviews when she’s interviewed, the way she speak, yeah, that passion is contagious. And there’s one executive in Microsoft that is also very often praised about his passion, not only about his good presentation skills, but his passion. He’s the VP of the Microsoft Surface family of product, the tablets and other devices. So these are two persons that really stand out.

And how you make sure that you show passion on your presentations? And my top tip is very simple. Speak topics that you are passionate about. Speak topics you’re already passionate about, which many people, actually somehow, violate that rule. Because sometimes, for work or for any other motivation, we end up talking topics that are, for instance, trendy, maybe some trendy topic. You might think, okay, this is trendy. I should know about this topic. Then I should also talk about this topic, which is, it’s a trap, it’s a dangerous trap doing that.

The basis that you just talk about, yeah, you’re really passionate about. No matter how many presentations you have seen or know that they have been, there can be a topic that hundreds, thousands of speakers already talk about. But every person has a different stories, has a different experience, has a different perspective, insights. So just pick what you are really passionate about. Because if you are passionate about something, you already have the stories. It’s something you have already been talking with your friends, colleagues, most likely. You can easily find the story. You easily find the motivation that will lead you to success. So that is the first one. The first of this top three secrets, if you call it.

The second one, now you capture the attention of the audience with your contagious passion. But also you want that at the end of your talk, people also remember what you say. And the best tool for people to remember what you say is telling stories. Telling stories, particularly, in the technology industry. I often call that we have to humanize technology with stories. Because often talking about technology can be dry. It’s difficult. Often, it’s complex. Often, it’s dry. It’s difficult to connect. It’s abstract. So that is very difficult to connect if you speak just literally trying to explain concepts in that way. So the best is to connect with stories. That’s why I call it humanized technology.

Also stories, a good reason to use stories is because they’re memorable. What you want is that people not only like your story, remember your story, but they start retelling your story to others. Retell-ability of your stories. And another element to use stories is because people, your audience wants to know you as a person. So take that opportunity to tell also about yourself. Show who you are, show your motivations, why you are speaking, why you are doing the job you do, why you are in that project. Because the more people know about you, the more people will like you. And the more they like you, they’ll be more willing to buy your product, try your, I don’t know, tool, API or just spread your ideas. They will spread your ideas further if they know more about you.

Of course, storytelling is a huge topic. So there are many things to learn. You need, for instance, collect stories, collect personal stories, collect also someone else’s stories, because you can use some others' stories as well. And then you will have to create some sort of plot to bring some excitement, right?

So I think one the simplest plot is the setting, challenge, and resolution. So you start with like the normal, how things are normal. Before then, there’s a challenge, some problem. And then there is a resolution. So how you or your product is solving that product. So has to be some storytelling arc there. So there are several elements. There’s a lot of really great books about storytelling, go very, very deep. So I absolutely recommend you to keep learning. I mean, there are so many of these books about storytelling that I recommend you to just get acquainted with that. Because the tool is super important, it’s probably the most important tool that you can use.

And then besides the stories, one thing that has become also very important, more important than ever, especially in the last, let’s say four years, three, four years, that we are having a lot of remote presentations, virtual presentation, online conferences. We need to interact with the audience better. Because it’s so easy in this virtual context that often you don’t see your audience. You don’t see your audience. So it’s very, very difficult to know what they’re doing, to know if they’re engaged, how you can react. So it’s very difficult in both directions. For the audience, for instance, it’s more easy to get distracted. And for the presenter, it’s also, yeah, it feels so weird. Not get the feedback, not see the faces.

There are of course, some tools that help you to do that. One tool very simple is about use of questions. You can use call and response questions in which you ask “Here’s a question.” There is one talk by Greg Young. He started with the question something like, how many of you have been in a talk about writing code? He posed this, and of course some people raised their hand. Some say yes. Yeah. That’s the response. And then he said, how many of you have been in a talk about refactoring code? Similarly, you get some response from the audience. And he uses that type of dynamic for the rest of the talk.

And then he uses a different type of question as well. He says something like this. What if, you were optimizing from the very beginning to be able to delete code? That’s another question. And in that question, he doesn’t expect an answer. He expects that the audience, by hearing that question to say, " Hmm, what if. Okay, let me think". So that is the reaction that he expects from their audience. And by having this reaction, the audience will be more connected. They connect back. You engage back your audience. So those are called rhetorical questions. You don’t expect an answer. You expect the audience start reflecting and that’s the power to keep them engaged. So those are the two main type of questions that you can use. There are of course others.

Besides that, of course, there’s a lot of interactive polls and more technical ways to engage the audience. Absolutely, that is very useful, of course. And as far as the technology works, because sometime it doesn’t. But yeah, those are very good. But I say the basics, are very important.

And also, one final thing about all this interaction, especially in the virtual environment, is that try to look at the camera. Because you only see the camera when you interact with the virtual conference tool as much as you can. Which is a skill that we are not trained for, that we have not been trained for that. I mean, only the TV anchors, the TV people, they are used to be looking all the time on the camera, but the rest of us not. So that’s the skill that we need to try and become better.

So these are, I would say the top three tools. Passion, storytelling, and interaction.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. I think when you explained all these three tips, right? I can relate to my public speaking experience as well. So maybe if we can just go slightly deeper one by one. Passion. I have experienced also before, giving a talk on some topics of product that I wasn’t really passionate about. I think the result was something different, actually. Yeah. You can tell if the speaker doesn’t have energy or you can also feel that you cannot engage the audience much better compared to if you are talking about something that you are really passionate about. So I think you give a very good tips, such that we should actually give presentation or talk or demo if we are passionate about the topic or the product, right?

[00:23:06] Passion

Henry Suryawirawan: I mean, you can try bringing up topic that you probably don’t have passion about, but I think the people can tell. And even for yourself, you can also tell that the energy might not be there when you speak about it. So for people who probably has a good passion, but they don’t know how to translate that to a good result of a talk. What do you think are some of the best ways to start? Because many people would have passions by itself, right? But they don’t have the courage to actually give the public speaking. So maybe something around this, how do you translate from the passion to a great talk?

Oscar Santolalla: Okay. Yeah. This would be more about, I would say, the mindset in which, okay, you have an interest. You have something. You have a fire inside you, but the fire is just inside you. There could be many reasons why you don’t do it. It can be the imposter syndrome. That feeling that, yeah, you have the passion, you like to talk about this, but think, oh, what happens if I send a speaking proposal and is rejected? What if this happens? What happen if I go to the stage and I get a difficult question? So I think it’s more about the mindset that people are thinking. This is stopping them from doing that. That would be one main reason why people don’t do it.

What I would recommend is to start sharing some of these stories about what you are passionate about. Start talking with your closest friend when you have like a dinner, coffee breaks with your colleagues. So start talking gradually. You can start talking in internal meetings with your colleagues as well. So I think start talking. And get some feedback, because especially, those struggle stories that you might have had when you, for instance, you had to learn something, you had to finish one difficult project. You get some lesson learned and that lesson learned can be very valuable if you share with someone else. So I would encourage to just start trying, start showing and you will get feedback. And always you will get supportive people, you will see always supportive people and that’s important.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah, you touched on a very good point. There are always supportive people, right? So don’t always think about the naysayers, the negative talks that you might get, that you think you might get, that’s the keyword that you might think you might get, right? So, I think the most important thing is just try in a small scale.

[00:25:16] Storytelling

Henry Suryawirawan: And you touched on multiple times about telling the stories, which is your second tips, storytelling. One of the challenge, whenever we present some kind of a tech product or tech demo, right, it’s pretty dry. So it could be like, features over features, maybe there’s a problem, there’s a feature, and this is how the product will solve it. So is there any tips? How can people convert this kind of presentation, product features, into something that is a more storytelling manner. So is it always that whenever you present this kind of product, you start with, okay, a story of a customer. So a story of a persona.

Is there maybe such tips that maybe you can give, maybe sales engineers out there as well, maybe so that they can give their product demo or product presentation much, much better with storytelling.

Oscar Santolalla: It’s true. If you want to, let’s say from scratch, you want to present, introduce one product or one feature set, and you don’t have anything. Let’s say you don’t have any story, you don’t have anything interesting, to call it in a way. First of all, there are different type of stories. I think you touched a little bit of that. You can focus on your customer, a real customer story. That’s great. Not always you have access to a happy customer story. But if you have it, play around, make it sound more interesting that it really is. I mean, make it sound more exciting if you know already a happy customer story. That’s one. Customer stories is very powerful in this case.

It can be also the creator’s stories. So who created that product, which can be as the founder of the company, but not necessarily. Can be just the person or the persons who were crucial in creating that product. And it goes now with the motivation. It’s not only saying, okay, this person started doing this project and the product happened, but also the motivation. I mean, what were their motivations to start this product, to create something? So probably they had some own pains, own problems. They were trying to solve their own problems or problem for someone who they really care about. So try to find that. And that already, you see, it’s already creating a story. It’s adding characters to a potential story. So, that’s very, very useful.

And then you can also bring your personal story. Because you are using already that product. You have experience using it, trying it, presenting it. So it’s very likely that you already have some story related to that. So that different type of story you can use. As I said, the customer story, can be the creator story, can be a personal story related to the product.

You can also do a fictitious story, like a role play story, completely invented a story. You can also create that, especially if you don’t find the real stories. If you don’t find the real stories, you can invent the story. That’s another way. So there, first of all, the different type of stories that you can create.

Now, one example, if you find that, probably, you can find it on YouTube, for instance. Couple of persons were really good at doing demos on stage and using those type of invented role play stories, were from Cisco, Jim Grubb, and, oh, I forgot , who was the CEO of Cisco for a long time. So the CEO of Cisco and Jim Grubb from Cisco, they were doing very cool stuff. They were doing even some kind of actors there on stage doing these demos. Invent invented stories, role play stories. It was so engaged, so interesting that. Yeah, you can also do that.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. I think those are some good tips. So for people whom your job is to sell tech products, I think these are definitely great tips, right? First is, of course, find happy customer stories. That is always gold, right? So you can always use this customer reference, customer stories, happy customer feedback, and tell the stories during your presentations. And also don’t forget, you can also create fictitious stories, right? You build few actors, few personas and, you know, tell why the product can actually help them.

[00:28:52] Delivering Product Demos

Henry Suryawirawan: So another thing that normally people do whenever they present tech product or tech kind of a service is that they will need to do a demo. I still remember couple of times I had to do demo. Sometimes, it succeeds. And many times, it failed as well. So people say the Demo God is just not there. So maybe can you tell us some tips how we can do our product demo much better, especially realtime product demo, not like recorded or pre-rehearsed, right? Is there some tips that you can do? Maybe, what we can do better?

Oscar Santolalla: Oh yeah, absolutely. Product demos is one of the first things that really inspire me to go deeper into this world of the presentations and go deeper to create all those articles and the books ultimately. So those first demos I saw were for people on stage, because, obviously, I didn’t see those in sales meetings. I saw them on stage, on some videos. I saw Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mikko Hyppönen. Panos Panay also did many very interesting demos live.

So for me, what I capture at that moment is that, one of the most important elements is the creativity that you need to create. You really need to be creative and find something that nobody has done. And if possible to create what I call the wow moment. So a very fraction of the whole demo in which people will remember. Just those few seconds. So it’s the climax of the whole demo. And it’s something unexpected, surprising where people see the benefit of the product.

So creativity is very important. And of course that takes time. So you can try to work yourself, try to work with some colleagues, brainstorm. Try to see, okay, we have this great feature of the product, but how we do it that it will really resonate with people. People will really remember. So try to find the best possible way to show that feature, that one of the best features that you might have. So the creativity is very important. Try to find the wow moment.

Another thing about product demo is that, like any other presentation, it requires a structure. It has to be well-structured. Actually, I can tell you that the generic structure I put in my book about product demos is you need to have a beginning, you have a middle, and an end. So in the beginning, one thing you can do is to introduce the presenter. So you introduce yourself or someone introduces you. But the important thing here is that that shows credibility. Why you are the one person showing that demo.

The other thing is, the next thing is giving some context about where you’re coming. Because one error in some demos is that you see the speaker says, okay, now I’m going to show you a demo. And they, the speaker shows the, let’s say the browser and start quickly moving, blah, blah, blah, moving around and very quickly showing. And the audience was like, “What? Wait a moment, when did you start?” So it’s important that in very few words, just one or two phrases, you give some context, saying, okay, we are going to present this feature and this context, something very, very short. So people have a bit of a clue what is coming, what is expected.

And then it comes the core of the demo, in which I recommend, especially for very important demos, write a script. So write a script of the demo. Normally, I visualize the script in two lines. One line is “what you say”, because you have some phrases you’re going to say. Now you don’t talk too much, but you have to say some, while you are showing the demo. And on the other column, write down “what you are doing”. Because you have to have it very clear what you are doing. So I have to put this password, I’m going to show this and hide this. So this kind of thing has to be written down, otherwise you will forget and you might show something that you don’t show. So that’s a script.

And of course, you rehearse as much as you can. There are stories, for instance, from Steve Jobs in which he rehearses so much that people were just crazy. The engineers or the other colleagues, like why you are rehearsing so much. Or that he was so ambitious and that the demo has to be flawless. Flawless that, yeah, all the others get just as crazy. But for important presentation, for important demo, that is the way. You have to really rehearse a lot until it’s flawless. And he’s not the only person, actually. I find some speaker more contemporary who do this, for instance, live coding. And they have said in some interviews, “Yeah, I rehearsed it 100 times. That’s why it looks very flawless now.” Yeah. That’s how it is, yeah. To rehearse a lot. And the wow moment, as I said, try to find a moment that will stand out, out of the whole demo.

And to close. So in the closing, you can just finish the demo. Let’s say you finish demo, you finish what you’re showing on the device or in the browser. One mistake is saying, okay, that was a demo. Thank you. So instead of doing that, you have to do two things. You can still do two things depending on the agenda.

But one thing is reiterate what you’ve just shown. So same few words. I just demonstrated how my product excels in these features, in this context. So just very shortly reiterate what you just done, because it might be that some people didn’t get it completely. They saw it, looked cool, but they didn’t completely get it. So you help with that. And the very last thing, depending, of course, on the context, call to action, in which you said, okay, now you have seen this. Now it’s time to, you can download my tool. You can buy a product, you have pre-order, etc. So that’s how a demo I think should end in most cases.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow, I think even your briefing sounds like a product demo already, right? It’s very, very encouraging for people. So I think I like in particular the writing a script where you provide two columns. One is “what you say”, and the second one is “what you do”. Because I also did a live demo, coding demo previously. Sometimes when you are in the moment, especially when things doesn’t work, right? You may actually forget what you need to say. Or the other thing, you know what you have to say, but you don’t remember what you have to do. So I think having these things definitely help.

And rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. I guess that’s a really key as well. Rehearse such that it becomes a natural thing. And maybe if I can just give one more tips is that, don’t forget that you are showing this to the audience. So don’t just do the demo by yourself, right? And you do all the shortcuts with a very quick manner. People might be lost in all the sequence that you have done in a live demo.

[00:34:52] Presentation Slides

Henry Suryawirawan: So another question that I have, normally, is the pet peeve for any kind of tech presentation or presentation in general is about slides, right? So any tips here how we can do much better product or tech speaking with slides?

Oscar Santolalla: Yeah. Slides is a tool that is very common. You don’t always have to use them, but it’s a powerful and common, very common tool.

A few things. First of all, when you have to make a presentation, don’t start with an empty PowerPoint or Keynote or whatever slide deck. So don’t start opening a new document and start typing, right? So that’s how many people do actually. But start with pen and paper or some other ways in which you can take notes. You can organize your ideas. So make sure you organize your ideas first, make some basic structure. Then after that, when you have your points, you have an idea what you would like to show, then go to PowerPoint or Keynote and start creating the slide deck. So that’s for me, it’s essential to start that.

Another thing that is very useful is also the template, so slide template. Cause that will help you to keep the same style on the different slide. Because if you want to create, okay, I create one more slide, then I have to copy paste the whole structure of that slide. So if you have template, there will be like several slide types that you can just choose the title or quote or graphic. So different slides that just are ready, the organization is ready, and the photo you want to insert is going to be in the right place. So this is very important, and I know that not many people do it that way. So it’s important. Try to learn about how to use templates.

One tip I can also give you, is that you can have one PowerPoint slides file just dedicated to accumulating interesting things. Because if you are going to have in the future some talk, you might need some new stories, new visuals, new supporting material. It’s good if you have this slide in which you only connect information. For instance, today, you read some news, someone shares with you interesting thing. Take a screenshot, copy paste there. You don’t know if you’re going to use it in the future. Just accumulate this, the image is there. That file might grow a lot, but the day you need for a new presentation, that image, oh, I should get the photo of this, or the screenshot of this, might be already on that file waiting for you.

For instance, in cybersecurity, there are the hacks. There are attacks in which suddenly, yeah, one service is down. One website is defaced. So if you know, you can go now, take a screenshot, keep it. Because that will be fixed in few hours. Or if you want to talk about that attack in few months. Well, you don’t have that screenshot. So , unless you save it for the future, you will not have it. So it’s just an interesting tip to keep in mind.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. That’s a very good tip actually, especially for people who have to provide relevant stories, right? Especially coming from the news, cybersecurity, right? Always have these things ready somehow in your electronic storage. I guess it could be the PowerPoint slides that you mentioned, right? It could be also like all these TLDR tools or maybe even like note taking apps. So I think that’s a very cool hack, so that you can actually collect all this and one day if you need it, you can just search. Yeah, don’t forget that the tool must support searching. Otherwise, it’ll be very difficult to look back what you stored before.

So thanks for sharing all these tips. I find it’s really relevant. And in your book, you have so many other tips. So for people who are interested to learn more about how you can give killer product demos or doing great public speaking, especially related to tech products, please feel free to check out the book.

[00:38:27] Importance of Voice

Henry Suryawirawan: So, let’s maybe touch on a little bit. You also host a podcast called Time to Shine, right? And the theme is around public speaking. So you have hosted this, maybe, for about two years now. Is there anything that you learned interestingly, from the guests that you brought to the podcast? Something about public speaking, which might be counterintuitive to what we know normally?

Oscar Santolalla: Yeah. I learned so much actually by having this conversation with several experienced speakers, some coaches, such a wide variety of people. Actually, one of the things that not many people mention, I think even less in the technology industry, is about the use of voice. I was able to talk with a few voice coaches, well some of them specialize also in singing, but mostly in speaking. So voice is super, super important.

Also, I learned on my way how to have a better voice. One thing is, for instance, how to like your voice, or if you can call, love your voice. I mean, when I started, the first recording of the podcast, I was like, mm, yeah, that’s my voice. Yeah, that’s my voice. But then, of course, you start improving. Sure, you have had this experience. And then you start feeling, yeah, my voice sounds good and I like my voice. But it’s important to learn more about your voice. So if you can also read a book about the voice, because it’s a musical instrument. It’s an instrument that, so if you want to play, for instance, guitar, you need to, to tune it. You have to be in good shape, tune it, and then play. If you take a guitar that has been in the storage for 20 years, of course, going to sound horrible. So your voice has to be in good shape.

And couple of things to have your voice in good shape. First of all, something is related to breathing. Something that happened often, more often than you might think, is that we tend to breathe by the mouth instead of the nose. So we should always breathe by the nose. One of the reason is that when you breathe by the mouth, your throat, your vocal cords get dry. Very quickly get dry. And that will make you cough or will just feel that it’s dry. I’m sure many of you have experienced that. You’re speaking for let’s say 20 minutes and, oh, I need to drink water because it’s super dry. And sometimes you notice some speakers are there at the stage and they’re speaking and (choking…).

So it’s because they’re, could be for bad habits or could be for nervousness because sometimes you are anxious. When you’re anxious, you start breathing by the mouth. But this is something that you have to avoid at all costs at all times. You should always breathe by the nose. Try to be conscious, try to realize when you are breathing by the mouth. So that’s one thing. Very important. Always breathe by the nose.

And the other thing that I’m sure not many people have give us advice is use vocal exercises. Vocal exercises, which you might think is only for singers, but that’s not correct. I mean, I do vocal exercises, as often as I can. Because that also help you to produce the sound that really resonate in your head and create nice sound. So that’s very important. If it’s something you have not tried, I strongly recommend you to try some vocal exercises that are meant for speakers, not for singers.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. Sounds interesting, indeed. So, I haven’t heard about these tips before. Every time I search about public speaking tips and trick, it’s always about storytelling, data, slides, and things like that. I never encounter something about voice, how to actually do the breathing. So I think this is definitely very interesting for people who want to advance their techniques of doing public speaking. And especially for me doing podcast, I believe it applies to me as well. How do we control our voice? How do we control our breathing? And how do we ensure that we still have the energy and passion to deliver what we are trying to say? So, thanks for the tips.

[00:42:05] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

Henry Suryawirawan: So, Oscar, it’s been a very great lesson about public speaking and presentation and product demo. I feel we can go on and on. But unfortunately due to time, we have to wrap up pretty soon. But before I let you go, I have one last question that normally I ask for all my guests, which I call the three technical leadership wisdom. So you can also think about it like three public speaking leadership wisdom or something like that. But this is something like an advice for us to think about or maybe could apply in our life and in our working situations. So maybe if you can share your three technical leadership wisdom.

Oscar Santolalla: Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. I’ve been thinking of this and keep some variety there. Not well connected each other, but I would say that can we beneficial for many of you. First, starting with speaking. It doesn’t matter where you are now. So if you never spoke in public, you are still junior in your career, maybe you are advanced. It doesn’t really matter. Find opportunity to speak. It’s very important that you speak in public. The more, the better, will help you in many ways. Can be internally in your team, for your communication internally. Or if you want to be on the stage, on the tech stage, it will definitely help you. So try to find simple opportunities.

And the easiest one was, we are having meetings very often. We have meetings very often. So you can take the initiative of, okay, I’m going to lead this meeting. Okay, I’m going to lead this meeting. I will going to be the one who opens the meeting, talks about the agenda, close the meeting, moderates in a way who speaks next. So just doing those small step, lead a meeting or give a presentation, internal presentation. So start doing those small steps.

And of course, I can tell you, this is something I didn’t tell, but when you already have the motivation for speaking in tech events, I can assure you that today there are event organizers who will be more than happy to invite you, as soon as, first of all, they receive your proposal. You have to send them the proposal. Because they are really hungry of hearing interesting topics, new topics, new people, new faces, new voices. So yeah, absolutely encourage you to send that speaking proposal that has been in your mind. Finish it and send it. So that’s the first one.

The second one is, yeah, many people will tell you, get a mentor. But I will tell you yes, get a mentor is good, is very important. But also as soon as you have some experience, become a mentor. Be a mentor, and help others who are still, let’s say, behind you in their career. They still haven’t walked that path that you have. So it’s very important. I think it’s super important to help others to find their way in their career. Cause everybody has some difficulties. To me, it’s very important to help others in the industry and in anything you do in life. So be a mentor. As soon as you can, you feel comfortable.

And the last one, this is related to the passion, the things that you truly believe in and you have fire inside you. I think you have to keep fighting for the causes that you care the most. That can be in your industry. It can be also outside your industry.

For instance, I work in Ubisecure. The main type of product is identity & access management. And one topic very connected to that is the topic of privacy, which for many people they say that this is a lost battle. Big tech has won. But, me and many people refuse to believe that. So we keep fighting for privacy of people. Not only from us or for us who are more technically knowledgeable how to protect ourselves, but also for the least privileged people who don’t have a choice. Sometimes they just have to use whatever technical tools that are put in front of them. So yeah, that’s my third advice. Always fight for the causes you care the most.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. Very, very beautifully said. The third one, I really love it, especially if you are passionate about it, right? Don’t let the fire just disappear. So fight for your cause and do the things that you believe in. I think that’s a very classic advice from many people, but I think still stays relevant.

So, Oscar, if people want to, maybe, follow you or they’re interested to learn more about doing this public speaking or tech demo, is there a place where they can find you online or any resources they can go to?

Oscar Santolalla: Sure. Thank you very much, Henry. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Oscar Santolalla. I will spell my name. Well, Oscar, like the movie award, that’s easy. Then Santolalla is S-A-N-T-O-L-A-L-L-A, Oscar Santolalla.

And you can also visit my website, it’s rockthetechstage.com. And I have a special offer for your listeners, in which I have my online course called Rock the Tech Stage on Demand which is an actionable course. It’s a byproduct of my book, Rock the Tech Stage. But it goes more into the how to do things with a lot of templates and how you can start from zero, come up with your topic, the best topic for you, and how to structure a talk. How to add all these skill sets, passion, and about storytelling much more in deep. And finally, how you can write a winning proposal that the events organizer are going to be happy to invite you. So for that, we have a 25% discount for you if you use the coupon code techleadjournal, like the podcast Tech Lead Journal. And the website is rockthetechstage.com/ondemand.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thank you for sharing that. I’ll put it in the show notes, definitely. So I think many people would be benefited from this, right? And be able to use new techniques from you on how they can deliver their speech much better. So thanks again for sharing that.

So Oscar, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your story. I think I learned a lot from you as well today.

Oscar Santolalla: Thank you very much, Henry. It was a real pleasure talking with you. All the best.

– End –