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Lightning talk

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A Lightning Talk is a short presentation given at a conference or similar forum. Unlike other presentations, lightning talks last only a few minutes and several will usually be delivered in a single period by different speakers.

History and format

Lightning Talks may have originated at the Python conference in 1997[1], where they were simply called short talks. The term "lightning talk" was first coined by Mark Jason Dominus for a similar session at the YAPC 19100 Conference (Yet Another Perl Conference) in June 2000[2][3] and gradually spread to other technical conferences.

Formats vary between venues. Most conferences will assign a speaking slot (30 to 90 minutes) to them and arrange several talks one after the other during the session.

The length of talks are usually between 1 and 10 minutes with a 5 minute limit being common. In order to allow rapid changes between speakers, slides may either be discouraged or a single computer running a Presentation program is used by all speakers.

See also

  • Pecha Kucha — A similar presentation format.
  • Ignite - a similar presentation format

References

  1. ^ "Wanted: Short Talks". Retrieved 2008-03-20.
  2. ^ "Talks that were presented at YAPC 19100". Retrieved 2007-01-27.
  3. ^ Berkun, Scott (January 14, 2010). "The End Of Boring Presentations". Forbes.com. Forbes. Retrieved January 14, 2010.