My First Tech Talk, A Nice Experience

In January 2026, exactly the 16 day of the month, I gave my first tech talk ever in a local tech community known as Xalapa Code, it was an exciting and really new experience to me.

Why did I do it?

I've heard about Xalapa Code some months ago and already join two previous meetings in the prior months, I decided it would be nice to give it a try since I've never done a talk or any public speaking before, giving my best to expand my comfort zone is probably a good idea and at this present time (January 2026) I'm unemployed and just using my free time to explore new things and grow new skills. I wanted to give it a try and just see what happens, thinking it will help me and prepare me for future talks and improve my communication skills.

How did it go?

It went great, first let me explain how I prepare for the talk. I inform I wanted to participate like one week before with some more days to spare, once I committed I already felt nervous and couldn't think of any particular topic to talk about, but with some time I choose to talk about a previous working experience with a project in an incident that happened due to bad practices in that organization and how I would improve or do the thing nowadays.

Anyway, now that the topic was chosen I went on and do some slides, they were mostly bullet points with some images that don't really explain that much, but serve as reference, good enough I though. Then I went ahead with some small script of what I'm supposed to say during that day, I only wrote it once, didn't review it that much and never got to practice in front of a mirror or anything like that, it helped me remember what happened that day, but I don't think it was that useful.

After all that, the day of the talk arrive, I got into the room early that day, greet some of the organizers and then when people start arriving I went first. I'm in front of everyone with a giant TV showing my slides, I feel nervous, I'm shaking and feeling sweaty, I felt my cheeks were burning, and my voice was trembling, I gave my introduction that probably lasted some minutes and was a bit longer, and then proceed with my slides.

As I was giving the talk I could feel my shakiness and nervousness, but when ahead and remember the most important parts and deliver my message, there were some interruptions for questions and information as I was speaking, really cool and nice, it was like having a small talk or just answer some questions.

By the end of the talk, everyone gave me a round of applause and went ahead with the questions part that's pretty standard by the end of any presentation or talk I guess, In my mind I was like "It is done, I think I did it nicely" there was some discussion about the topic I talk about, mainly how to back up data safely and better practices that the organization and I could have done better, I got a little bit distracted during that discussion probably due to my nerves, but it was nice overall.

After that the next person gave their talk and I chat a bit with other people in the room, I was still a bit nervous, but that feeling slowly fade away after some time during the event.

You should try it as well

Well, I just gave a brief resume of my experience, nice overall and I want to encourage you as well to try it, go look for a group that does local meeting as well, not only code or tech related meeting it can be anything really, even Toastmasters would work fine (and possible one of the best for public speaking), it's okay if you are shy, I'm also shy, but it's doable, just give it a try, it's a really uncomfortable experience your first time, but I pull it off and so you can, it's only a few minutes and people are generally nice in the end, not much can go wrong, if they dislike the topic or your audience was not engaged with you, you still learn something, and I'm sure in the next talks you will be less nervous (that's what I hope with me as well).

I'll leave this post with the picture of me giving the talk, I may look normal or chill, but I swear I was dying inside, my legs were shaking, my face was burning, my mouth was stuttering, but in the end everything went nice.