I was recently given the opportunity to present a talk at Umbraco Spark 2025 on Microsoft's new HybridCache implementation and other .NET caching tools. As this was my third consecutive Umbraco Spark talk, I wanted to try a new approach and decided to incorporate a Pokémon theme into my presentation. Not only am I a Pokémon fan, which made the experience more enjoyable for me, but using a familiar and engaging theme can also help the audience understand complex technical concepts and relate them to their own work.
The talk was divided into three primary sections: an overview of problems that web developers can solve with efficient caching, a high-level summary and demonstration of Microsoft's HybridCache and its usage, and a discussion of HybridCache alternatives, such as FusionCache, that offer similar approaches with more advanced features.
The talk was really fun to present and seemed to be warmly received by members of the audience. As previously mentioned this was my third talk at Umbraco Spark, alongside a number of discussions at smaller .NET meetups around Bristol and whilst I am by no means an expert, or even a particularly competent speaker, I have learned a number of things that I feel have helped me improve on my content delivery.
- Choose a topic you’re passionate about
This one feels relatively obvious, but I found my favourite talks to deliver, not to mention the best talks I’ve seen, were the ones I was genuinely interested and enthusiastic about. I often find it difficult to build up energy for things that I either don’t fully understand or don’t really interest me all that much. This energy reflects in your delivery and makes it difficult to engage with. For example, when I discovered HybridCache, and to a greater extent FusionCache during the 2024 CodeCabin, I was genuinely excited by the features they offered and the problems I could envisage them solving in my projects. This was greatly enhanced by the Pokémon themed talk as it allowed me to combine the technical aspects with that of something I enjoy from my personal life. - Try not to overthink and tinker up to the last minute
For me personally, this one felt difficult but improved with each talk I did. I was so nervous initially with making sure the information I was getting across was correct/interesting/useful and I was constantly tweaking slides or tinkering with demos right up until the last minute. However, whilst it’s perfectly acceptable to want to improve and refine your talk, doing so right down to the wire can overcomplicate your content and increase your anxiety around the delivery.
I’ve still far from perfected this part, but my advice would be to construct your talk, slides and demonstrations early. Give yourself plenty of time to understand what and how you’re delivering them and stick with it. One thing I found really useful was to demonstrate the talk to a friend or colleague in order to gain some feedback, make some refinements, practice and then lock down that content from further amends. - The dreaded ‘Live Demonstration'
Live Demos can be a brilliant and engaging way to represent the topics you’re speaking about and show the audience how to use them. But there are often many things that can go wrong or not work as you intended which can be nerve-wracking and challenging to handle when you’re on stage. Each of the talks I’ve done at Umbraco Spark contained live demos and here are some of the things I’ve learned that helped me improve on them each time.
- Ensure your demo works before you start your talk. This might sound obvious, but there are a number of variables that can be easily overlooked. For example, does the venue have sufficient internet access? Are there firewall rules or ports that might not be open or available to the tools you’re using? Will you be holding a microphone which can make typing difficult? A lot of this information can be found out ahead of time to better prepare you for all eventualities
- Be prepared for failure. Sometimes, things just don’t go to plan and for whatever reason, your demo doesn’t work. Possibly for the reasons mentioned above, a nervous mistake or perhaps because you’re testing using a third party that is experiencing issues. There’s little you can do to predict or prevent these things but you can be prepared. If possible, pre-record some video content of your demonstration that you can talk through for example, or simply be prepared to discuss in more detail. One thing I do recommend though is NOT to debug code in real-time. From an audience perspective it can be off-putting and often detracts from the topic at hand. - Manage your time as best as you can
Perhaps another obvious one but typically with a talk you’re given an allocated timeslot that, in an ideal situation, you’d fill perfectly. However, once again, there are a variety of things that can either prolong or hasten a talk. For me personally, it became apparent that when I’m nervous I talk rather rapidly, so although in my practice runs my talks were paced down to the minute, on the day I found myself with multiple minutes to spare.
- Utilise any spare time at the end of the talk for Q&A. I found this really useful actually as it not only gives the audience an opportunity to seek clarity but can be a good indicator of how engaged people were in the topic you were discussing
- Identity ahead of your talk where you can shave time if necessary. Perhaps you’d intended to show multiple examples that you can trim down to just a single one or maybe you had intentions to discuss other references or further reading which can be instead be referred to contacting you after the talk. Be prepared. - Have fun!
Talks don’t have to be funny, they’re not stand-up comedy. But the likelihood is if you’re having fun on stage then your audience will be having fun too. Try and relate the topic to something you enjoy, in my case it was Pokémon but it might be an anecdote or a metaphor that’s relative to you for example.
After my talks, I got lots of good feedback, people seemed to really like the fun theme and the demos. Some suggested adding more technical details on my most recent one, or making it more specific to Umbraco, which is definitely something I’ll be refining before presenting at Umbraco CodeGarden 2025! Key takeaways for me were picking a topic I'm into, using visuals and (appropriate) humour, really testing those demos, and being ready for lots of questions.
Overall I’ve thoroughly enjoyed presenting talks at Umbraco Spark. Although I’m always nervous beforehand it’s important to remember that nobody wants you to fail. Nowhere more so than the Umbraco Community that are always incredibly encouraging and supportive. I’d also like to thank everyone at Gibe for giving me the opportunity and helping me with my preparation also.
