How to Make a Great Social Web Devroom Presentation
Earlier this month, we made a call for participation for the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM 2025 . I've also been contacting the leading Free and Open Source software developers working on ActivityPub, Mastodon clients, tools, frameworks, and libraries to make sure they're aware of the event. One of the main questions I've had is: "I'm a software developer, not a marketer or product manager. I'm not used to giving presentations about my work. What should I say, and how should I say it?" […]
One of the main questions I’ve had is: “I’m a software developer, not a marketer or product manager. I’m not used to giving presentations about my work. What should I say, and how should I say it?” Instead of answering a dozen emails and DMs with the same info, I thought it would be good to provide some guidelines in a public blog post, for anyone who’s planning to submit a proposal.
These are meant to be helpful hints to people who are feeling blocked about giving a presentation, not absolute requirements. If you don’t want or need this advice, skip it!
Audience
The audience at FOSDEM roughly breaks down into two main groups: Free and Open Source software developers, and Free and Open Source software superfans. There is a big intersection between these two sets!
Regardless, there are just a few things that the members of the audience are there to find out from your presentation:
- Should they become a contributor to your Free and Open Source software project?
- Should they build something interesting using your software as a base?
- Should they install or use your software to solve a problem that they have?
- Should they recommend your software to someone else to solve their problem?
- Have you learned something important that they need to know?
Everyone at the event will be familiar with Free and Open Source software; most of the people in the room will be familiar with the advantages of the Fediverse over siloed social networking. Many will be Fediverse developers themselves.
Style
For your presentation, try to follow these guidelines:
- Include visuals. Try to include images on every slide, if possible. Screenshots are a great way to convey a lot of information quickly.
- Use speaker notes. Not everything you say needs to be on the slide.
- Be personal. Social software is about connecting people. Include information about yourself, your team, and your users, to your level of comfort.
- (Almost) no code. Avoid code samples on your slides, unless your project is a library or toolkit and code is the primary interface.
- Be specific. Use real dates, real statistics, and real measurements if at all possible. Name names of projects or commercial software or services.
- No live demos. Don’t try to demo your project live. You can convey most of this information as screenshots. We believe your code works; you don’t have to prove it. We can download it and test it ourselves if there’s any question.
- Be exactly as important as you are. Don’t downplay the importance or quality of your project, but also don’t try to puff it up into something it’s not. It’s OK to solve a specific problem for specific users. If you care about it enough to work on it, we will care about it.
Outline
This is a sample outline for a 25-minute presentation with 20-30 slides. You don’t have to follow this if you have better ideas for flow; this is just a guideline for those who need a skeleton.
- Introduction
- The project you are going to talk about
- The part of the project that you are going to focus on (or general)
- A one-sentence explanation of what your project does
- Your name, affiliation, location, and your relationship to the project
- Number of team members and names
- Context
- The area of functionality your project works in
- Why that functionality is important to people
- What other projects, commercial software, or commercial services provide that functionality
- Statistics showing that this functionality matters
- Examples or anecdotes showing that this functionality matters
- Challenge
- What problem does your project intend to solve?
- Whose problem is it?
- Why is it a hard problem?
- What other problems arise when you try to solve it?
- Who else has tried to solve it? Why didn’t it work well enough for you?
- Overcoming
- How you and your team started working on this problem
- What tools you used
- The first version: when and how
- New problems that arose after first implementation
- The next version: how you fixed those problems
- Learning
- Did your team solve the problem? Show numbers and examples.
- What has surprised you? Who used the software in a way you didn’t expect, or made something that delighted you?
- What new challenges have come up now that your project exists?
- What do you wish you’d known before you started?
- How can the devroom audience learn more of what you learned?
For an 8-minute lightning talk, keep it super tight! Here’s an 8-slide presentation outline:
- Introduce yourself (name, affiliation, location)
- Introduce your project (name, one-sentence explanation, team info)
- Context on the area of work
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- Who came together to overcome the problem
- What tools and techniques did they use to overcome it
- How did it work (so far)?
- What will you do next?
Preparation
The key to a successful presentation is preparing well ahead of time. Make an outline early, and then transfer it to slides. Add speaker notes. Make placeholders for images; don’t work too hard on visual aspects until you’re sure of the structure and content. Practice just the words for yourself, and make sure to check the time. Practice at least once for an audience, even if it’s your mom or your cat. Do the visual aspects last, once you know the structure and the text are correct. Practice words and names that might be challenging.
Conclusion
We’re all going to be in the Social Web Devroom because we care about the Fediverse. If you can show how and why you think the Fediverse matters and your project will make it better, we’re going to be right there with you. Thanks for considering a proposal!
