Once you have designed your talk and all the slides, you need to encourage meetup groups or conferences to schedule your talk. Once the talk has been selected—especially if you are speaking at a conference where the audience has a choice of talks to see at the same time—you need to convince attendees to sign up for yours. The tool for doing this is the synopsis. The synopsis contains the name of the talk and what the talk is about. Your talk synopsis is your best opportunity to make a strong first impression.
In this chapter, we’ll go over the standard structure of a synopsis and then look at synopses of four talks I have presented in the past.
The Importance of a Synopsis
A synopsis can make or break the success of your talk. You may believe that your talk is the best one ever given, but if your synopsis is weak and doesn’t excite your potential audience, they will choose a different talk instead.
Catchy talk title
Initial hook
More details
Closing statement
Catchy Talk Title
The first thing anyone will see is your talk title, which will determine whether they want to continue reading. If the title doesn’t grab them, then they will simply click to the next talk. I have always had success using a title and subtitle for a talk. This format seems to work quite well. Later in this chapter, I will take you through four talk synopsis examples from my own talks, but for now, let’s look at the titles.
The first title is “Fighting Back Against a Distracted World: Increasing Your Focus and Self-Motivation.” The main title is quite catchy and draws you in with a talk about a distracted world—something most people can relate to. Then the subtitle talks about increasing your focus and self-motivation. Straight away, we can see the talk is about beating distractions and increasing focus and motivation. This title on its own offers a good impression of what the talk is about.
The next title is “Dot NET Core Data Security: Hope Is Not a Strategy.” This is the title of a very technical software development talk focusing on the Microsoft Dot NET programming framework. This audience group will immediately know that this talk is about the security framework that comes with Dot NET. The subtitle says that hope is not a strategy, which implies that ignoring data security is futile, and this talk will give you a real strategy. Again, the right audience will immediately know what the talk is about just from the title. This has been by far my most popular talk, and I have done versions of it all around the world; it consistently rates very high with attendees.
The next title is “Protecting Encryption Keys with Azure Key Vault.” This title doesn’t have a subtitle, but the main title gets straight to the point. Any software developer in the Microsoft Azure cloud computing space will immediately know what this talk is about. There are no fancy clickbait style words; the title just gets to the point straight away.
The final talk title I will discuss in this chapter is “Hacking Humans: Social Engineering Techniques and How to Protect Against Them.” The use of “hacking humans” was deliberately picked to be quite bold. This is a security talk about social engineering, but at first glance, hacking humans could be thought of as something else. The talk isn’t about axe murders, though, which the subtitle confirms. The talk covers social engineering techniques and how to protect against them. People who have heard this talk said that the full title and subtitle were compelling, as they immediately imply that you’ll learn about how social engineers work and how to guard against them.
There has been quite a trend lately to use clickbait-style titles like those on websites such as BuzzFeed. I would say, however, that unless your talk is designed to be humorous, I would avoid clickbait. It looks bad and cheapens the impact of your talk if it is serious. If you find this interesting, you’ll never guess what I’m going to say next! I cringed just writing that.
Initial Hook
Once the talk title has grabbed your readers, they will want to know more. The first few sentences of your synopsis need to provide a great hook. You may state an interesting fact or propose a problem that you are going to solve. People have short attention spans these days, so these first few sentences must draw people in. Once they have been hooked, they will continue reading. If they don’t think the talk is for them after reading your hook, they will likely stop reading and won’t attend the talk. I will look at the hooks for some of my talks later in this chapter.
More Detail
Now that you have grabbed their attention with the title and the first hook, they will want more details about your talk. In this section, you can provide granular details on what you will cover. If this talk is aimed at people at an intermediate or advanced level, you’ll want to include a fair number of details so that they can determine whether your talk will be suitable for them. You don’t want attendees to come to your talk who expect certain topics but then feeling you didn’t deliver on their expectations.
Closing Statement
The closing statement is a final sentence or two that acts as a final hook for the reader. After providing the talk’s main details, you might state an interesting fact or reiterate the problem you are trying to solve. Essentially, you are trying to remind the reader about what’s in it for them if they come to your talk.
These four steps for writing a synopsis are a guide, not a clear set of rules. Of course, you can write whatever you like in the synopsis, but these steps provide a solid method to create an enticing talk description. I haven’t always followed this style, but they will help if you need somewhere to start.
Let’s now look at synopses for the four talks I have delivered. These are four of my most popular talks that have been accepted at conferences all over the world, and they have all been rated very highly by attendees at events that ask them to rate the talks. My talks tend to be in the realm of software development, security, and personal productivity. It doesn’t matter if your field of interest is different; it’s the principles that are important, as shown in the following examples.
The synopsis of your talk is one of the most important aspect of a presentation design, besides the presentation itself. If you are submitting to a conference, your talk will be accepted or rejected based on the synopsis alone. Once you are accepted to speak at an event, the synopsis becomes the primary advert to encourage people to attend your talk over someone else’s.
Talk 1: Fighting Back Against a Distracted World: Increasing Your Focus and Self-Motivation
“Fighting Back Against a Distracted World” is a productivity talk I started delivering at conferences in 2019. It has been quite popular and regularly fills halls with attendees who have given favorable feedback. I already talked about the title of this talk earlier in this section of the book and how I use a main title and a subtitle to give readers a good impression of what the talk is about.
We live in an age of technical wonder, with the internet, high-end games, and streaming service all vying for our attention. We have never had so many significant innovations available at our fingertips, accessible 24/7. However, with all these systems, we are becoming increasingly distracted and struggling to focus for extended periods. If left unchecked, these distractions can affect our work, careers, and self-confidence. We need to be able to break this cycle of distraction while still enjoying all these innovations.
When I first became self-employed, I thought that I would have the ultimate freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. To a degree, I did, but I didn’t have anyone looking over me, holding me accountable. I started to become distracted. After a while, I decided things had to change. I began a quest to become more productive, focused, and motivated—while still indulging in the occasional Netflix binge.
In this talk, I share my story of personal distraction, low motivation, and increased project anxiety . I also share how I broke this cycle and got my creative and productive mojo back.
This talk is aimed at anyone who strives to be more productive but struggles with distractions daily. I cover the following subjects:
Distraction and procrastination
Finding meaning in your work
Self-motivation
Locus of control
Productivity and time management
Social media addiction
I now consider myself very productive, but getting there was a battle. Let me share my story so that I can help you become productive and confident too.
We live in an age of technical wonder, with the internet, high-end games, and streaming service all vying for our attention. We have never had so many significant innovations available at our fingertips, accessible 24/7. However, with all these systems, we are becoming increasingly distracted and struggling to focus for extended periods. If left unchecked, these distractions can affect our work, careers, and self-confidence. We need to be able to break this cycle of distraction while still enjoying all these innovations.
I start off by reminding the reader that the world we live in is wonderful with all the technology at our fingertips. Just look at the humble iPad, for example, a glass screen you can carry around and access any information you want, watch films, talk to family or friends, or play games. It wasn’t so long ago that iPad-like devices were the mainstay of science fiction. I always remember Jean-Luc Picard in his ready room on the Starship Enterprise accessing information on what looked like a tablet device. I always wanted one, and now we have several similar devices in my household.
I then go on to state that as wonderful as these devices are, they are brilliant at distracting us—emails, notifications, phone calls, video calls, twitter messages. A lot of distractions will stop you from being productive. I state that if these distractions are left unchecked, our careers and self-confidence can be affected. I end the hook by reaffirming that we need to break this cycle of distraction yet still enjoy our technology. Here, I am trying to imply that we will try to sort this problem out in the talk, but it isn’t the talk’s purpose to make you give up technology.
This is a strong opening hook, and after reading only these few sentences, you get an idea of the talk’s tone and content. Some conferences that have accepted this talk have displayed the talk title and my opening hook on the schedule page. The reader then must click on the talk to learn more.
When I first became self-employed, I thought that I would have the ultimate freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted. To a degree, I did, but I didn’t have anyone looking over me, holding me accountable. I started to become distracted. After a while, I decided things had to change. I began a quest to become more productive, focused, and motivated—while still indulging in the occasional Netflix binge.
In the next part of the synopsis, I introduce my personal story. My intention here is to hint to readers that I am not just going to talk through a series of tips—I am talking from experience. In my opinion, some of my favorite talks are based on the speaker’s firsthand experiences, which allows you to weave a story into the talk, and everyone likes a good story.
In this talk, I share my story of personal distraction, low motivation, and increased project anxiety. I also share how I broke this cycle and got my creative and productive mojo back.
This talk is aimed at anyone who strives to be more productive but struggles with distractions daily. I cover the following subjects:
Distraction and procrastination
Finding meaning in your work
Self-motivation
Locus of control
Productivity and time management
Social media addiction
If the reader didn’t pick up on the fact that I was going to be talking about my personal experiences, I make it obvious by telling them that this talk is about my story of distraction, low motivation, and project anxiety. I state that I am going to talk about how I broke this cycle. I am not telling my story for the sake of it; there is a purpose in talking about how I overcame a problem.
I then mention who the talk is aimed at; in this case, people who want to be more productive and reduce distractions, which is probably everybody. I then list the main topics from the talk as a bullet-point list. This means there will be no ambiguity over what I am going to cover, as I state it outright. In fact, that bullet-point list ended up becoming the main section headings for the talk. Nobody could say that they didn’t know what the talk was going to cover, as I am quite direct.
Some people might say that going to that level of detail is giving away what’s in the talk, but I disagree. They know the main subjects, but not all the nuanced content. This talk is one-hour long, and I speak, on average, for 55 minutes. There’s a lot in there.
I now consider myself very productive, but getting there was a battle. Let me share my story so that I can help you become productive and confident too.
My closing statement is only two sentences, but they are specific. I first state that I now consider myself productive. In other words, I solved the problem, but it was hard. This signals to the reader that this is a battle that can be won. I then finish by saying that I will be sharing my story—just in case that wasn’t obvious already—and that I am going to help you become productive and confident. In other words, I am not only going to tell you a story, but I am also going to give you a solution.
Of all the talks I have written, this is my personal favorite. That is why I talked about it first. When I give this presentation, attendees come to talk with me after the event or contact me privately to tell me how much they liked the talk and how it helped them, which is incredibly humbling. Much work went into writing the talk, and a lot of effort went into trying to craft the perfect—in my eyes—synopsis. I didn’t write this synopsis on a single attempt; it took a few revisions.
The next talk I want to cover is completely different in that it is aimed at an extremely specific technical audience.
Talk 2: Dot NET Core Data Security: Hope Is Not a Strategy
This talk is the first one I ever designed and delivered. The talk is aimed at a specific audience of Microsoft Dot NET developers, so it is quite a niche.
Failing to encrypt your data is a risky move, and simply hoping that you won’t get hacked and compromised is not a strategy. As a software developer, you have a duty to your employer to secure and protect their data.
Through this talk, you will learn how to use the .NET framework to protect data to ensure confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, and authentication.
This talk covers random number generation, hashing, authenticated hashing, password-based key derivation functions, and symmetric and asymmetric encryption using DES, Triple DES, AES (CBC and GCM), and RSA. You will also learn how to combine them to produce a hybrid encryption scheme that includes AES, RSA, Hashed Message Authentication Codes, and digital signatures.
The main title, “Dot NET Core Data Security,” will mean something to Microsoft Dot NET developers —as I said, this is a niche talk. The subtitle says hope is not a strategy, which implies that hoping your data will not be compromised is not a good business strategy; you need to act.
Failing to encrypt your data is a risky move, and simply hoping that you won’t get hacked and compromised is not a strategy. As a software developer, you have a duty to your employer to secure and protect their data.
Here, I am reaffirming the subtitle of the talk, just in case the reader doesn’t pick up on it. Again, when a conference displays a talk on its website, it typically includes the talk title and the first one or two sentences, and then the reader must click through to read more. When they want to read more, they get the subsequent details.
I then state that as a software developer, you have a duty to your employer to protect their data. Here, I am telling the reader that if you are a developer, you have a responsibility. I am hoping this makes the reader suddenly sit up and think that they need to pay attention.
Through this talk, you will learn how to use the .NET framework to protect data to ensure confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, and authentication.
This talk covers random number generation, hashing, authenticated hashing, password-based key derivation functions, and symmetric and asymmetric encryption using DES, Triple DES, AES (CBC and GCM), and RSA. You will also learn how to combine them to produce a hybrid encryption scheme that includes AES, RSA, Hashed Message Authentication Codes, and digital signatures.
The main details are quite technical, but I am aiming at a specific audience niche. If the terms are familiar with the reader, then it is most likely a talk for them. In these details, I state what cryptography primitives I will talk about and how to use them together in their software solutions. The actual talk follows what I mention in this section quite closely.
This talk does not have a closing statement. Since I originally designed the talk, the synopsis hasn’t changed much. As the talk is so niche to its intended audience, what I will talk about and the level of the talk are obvious.
This has been an extremely popular talk that I have been fortunate to deliver all over the world, but it is my first-ever designed talk and probably not the best in terms of design. However, I have adapted it over the years, and it always goes down well with its intended audience.
The next talk I want to talk about is also a specific technical talk with a niche audience.
Talk 3: Protecting Encryption Keys with Azure Key Vault
“Protecting Encryption Keys with Azure Key Vault” is another niche software development talk aimed at Microsoft developers using Azure, their cloud computing platform. This talk focuses on a service provided by Azure called the Key Vault, which is a service that allows you to create and manage encryption keys as well as store confidential secrets such as passwords for third-party services. The type of people who would be interested in this talk are software developers working in larger corporate enterprises, so that was my target audience.
The title for this talk doesn’t have a subtitle. The main title says what the talk is about and what platform it is aimed at—Azure Key Vault. When I submit this talk to events that specialize in Microsoft-based software development, anyone who reads that title immediately knows what the talk is about.
In a world where we put our companies’ data in the cloud, protecting that data from data breaches has never been more important.
In this talk, I demonstrate how to set up and use the Microsoft Azure Key Vault to protect your encryption keys and secrets, such as passwords and connection strings. Azure Key Vault harnesses the power of hardware security modules to protect your secrets and make sure your solutions are as secure as they can be, which is particularly important in regulated industries like health care, finance, and insurance.
In addition to setting up and configuring the vault, I will show you how to code against key vault libraries and various patterns for security in a cloud-based multi-tenant environment. I will cover the following topics:
Setting up Azure Key Vault
Authorizing your application to access the vault with Azure Active Directory
Accessing the vault from your applications
Using the vault to wrap local encryption keys for performance
Encrypting connection strings as Key Vault secrets to get flexible database routing in the cloud
You will leave this talk with everything you need to start using Azure Key Vault today .
In a world where we put our companies’ data in the cloud, protecting that data from data breaches has never been more important.
The initial hook for this talk is just one sentence. Here, I state that we are putting more data into the cloud, and that it is as important, now more than ever, that we protect that data. This is the main point of the talk. We need to protect our employers’ and customers’ data from data breaches. You can turn on the TV every day and hear about a company that has had data lost or stolen. We want to stop that, and this talk is designed to help.
In this talk, I demonstrate how to set up and use the Microsoft Azure Key Vault to protect your encryption keys and secrets, such as passwords and connection strings. Azure Key Vault harnesses the power of hardware security modules to protect your secrets and make sure your solutions are as secure as they can be, which is particularly important in regulated industries like health care, finance, and insurance.
In addition to setting up and configuring the vault, I will show you how to code against key vault libraries and various patterns for security in a cloud-based multi-tenant environment. I will cover the following topics:
Setting up Azure Key Vault
Authorizing your application to access the vault with Azure Active Directory
Accessing the vault from your applications
Using the vault to wrap local encryption keys for performance
Encrypting connection strings as Key Vault secrets to get flexible database routing in the cloud
Here, I provide a lot of details on what the talk is about. The talk is delivered more like a tutorial in which I show the audience how to set up the Key Vault, how to write software using its software development kits, and some different usage patterns. By the time the reader has finished this section of the synopsis, they will know exactly what to expect.
This talk has always rated extremely well with conference attendees, and I believe that’s because of two main factors. First, I go into a lot of detail in this talk, and it is very practical and demo led. Second, the synopsis is quite clear about what to expect, so it is rare to get an attendee who shows up feeling that they already know the content, or it is too advanced. I spent a lot of time trying to pitch the synopsis at the right level.
You will leave this talk with everything you need to start using Azure Key Vault today.
Here, I reaffirm that by attending this talk, you will be able to start using Azure Key Vault. The talk is a practical tutorial, so the audience could take what I have said and the sample code I give them in the talk and start using the principles straight away.
Let’s now look at the final synopsis.
Talk 4: Hacking Humans: Social Engineering Techniques and How to Protect Against Them
This talk synopsis is the shortest of them all, but it is also one of my most popular talks. We have already discussed the title for this talk, in that the main title of “Hacking Humans” conjures up all sorts of vivid images. To prove that this isn’t a talk about axe murders, I use the subtitle to give extra context. This talk is about social engineering techniques and how to protect against them. The subtitle implies that we may be learning about something a little taboo, with the promise of techniques on how to protect ourselves.
Social engineering is one of the biggest threats to our organizations, as attackers use manipulation techniques to coerce people into revealing secrets about companies that give attackers access to critical systems.
In this talk, we will look at some of the techniques used in social engineering and how to guard yourself against them. We will cover subjects such as pretexting, elicitation, and body language as manipulation techniques.
Social engineering is one of the biggest threats to our organizations, as attackers use manipulation techniques to coerce people into revealing secrets about companies that give attackers access to critical systems.
In this talk, we will look at some of the techniques used in social engineering and how to guard yourself against them. We will cover subjects such as pretexting, elicitation, and body language as manipulation techniques.
When I go into more detail, I state that we will look at some techniques used; that is, I will show them how to do the techniques and then how to protect themselves against them. I then mention the techniques—pretexting, elicitation, and body language as manipulation techniques. This naturally gets people interested, as I talk about techniques that would result in committing a crime if used against someone without their permission. However, the idea is that by knowing these techniques, you can protect yourself and your organizations from them.
When I have spoken to attendees of this talk, most say they like the idea that they are going to learn something that is potentially illegal, but for the purposes of good. We are naturally curious creatures, so this is quite alluring.
If I am honest, even though this is one of my most popular talks, out of all my talk descriptions, this is the weakest, as I could go into more detail than I have. I have refrained from doing so as the synopsis clearly works, and many events have selected the talk and it consistently earns exceedingly high ratings from attendees. So I took the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” stance.
Summary
I have spent quite a long time going over writing a talk synopsis, as it is just as important, if not more important than the talk itself. The talk must be good. If you haven’t thought out the synopsis, a conference might not select the talk.
The synopsis serves multiple purposes. If you are presenting to peers at your workplace, the synopsis will inform so they can set their expectations. If you are public speaking at a conference, for example, then the synopsis is a tool that helps you beat the competition to have your talk selected. Conference speaking can be competitive, so writing this vital document is very important.
If they select you to speak at a conference, then your synopsis serves a second purpose, and that is encouraging attendees to come and see your talk. It is a sales letter to the audience member. Be careful to pitch the synopsis with accurate information so that the right people attend. Don’t bluff. If people attend with the wrong expectations, then they could down-rate your talk, which can affect your ability to be reselected at that conference.
Workshop Questions
- 1.Start thinking about your presentation’s synopsis. It is a good idea to write the synopsis before designing the final presentation. Include each of the following items:
Catchy talk title and subtitle: Pick a title that draws the potential audience members in. Try not to make it sound like a clickbait link, but you can try a clever title provided it is not misleading. For my Hacking Humans talk, as described earlier, it is a striking title, yet the subtitle gives context, Social Engineering Techniques and How to Protect Against Them.
Initial hook: The initial hook draws the reader in after the title. It is quite common for a conference schedule to only show the title and initial hook, and the viewer needs to click through to read more, so the impact of this initial hook could decide whether someone comes to see your talk or not.
More details: In this section, you can go into more detail about the problem you are addressing and how you will solve it. This section is there to convey more detailed information to help someone make their decision to see your talk. Don’t write too much, though; it should still be brief.
Closing statement: The closing statement is an opportunity to summarize why someone should attend your talk.
- 2.
Once you have written your synopsis, you should show it to different people to get feedback. A useful trick is to write two or three different synopsis documents in different styles. Then get people to pick their favorite and tell you why they picked it over the others. The synopsis is as important as the actual presentation itself, as it is how you will sell the idea of your presentation to attendees and events.