Using Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory to Understand What Goes Into a Conference Presentation

One of the best things about the Florida Writers Association is its cornerstone philosophy: Writers helping writers.

Beginning writers learn from experienced writers. They become experienced writers themselves, and teach the next generation of beginning writers. Knowledge is passed down, writer generation to writer generation, year to year. I took what other writers taught me, and I’ve taught it to countless writers myself.

That’s why I like writing conferences: we’re learning to become experts from other experts, people who have amassed years — decades even — of knowledge and are eager to share it.

Writers helping writers, right?

But what goes into that talk you’re watching? How much time did the speaker put into their actual one-hour presentation?

To paraphrase the meme going around social media, “if I give a talk in 60 minutes, I spent 10 years learning how to share that in 60 minutes. You’re paying for the years, not the minutes.”

I’ve given hundreds of talks at different conferences, trade shows, and business meetings over the last 15 years, and I’ve learned some very important lessons about being a speaker, what makes a good audience, and how (and why) the speaker should also derive some value out of the talks they give.

The “Iceberg Theory” of Speaking

I can explain conference presentations with Ernest Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory: The 20% of the iceberg you see is supported by the 80% you don’t see.

When it comes to a story, the 20% of what the reader sees is supported by the 80% of the writer’s knowledge, experience, and skills. The reader will never see it, but they wouldn’t see the important 20% without it.

So how does the Iceberg Theory relate to conference presentations?

First, let’s look at the talk itself. A one-hour talk doesn’t just take an hour of the speaker’s time.

A monthly chapter speaker should arrive at the venue 60 minutes before the talk is supposed to start. That gives them enough time to set up, make sure the AV is working properly, and to deal with any surprises. When the talk is over, the speaker will often stick around and answer questions for another 30 minutes or so. (These numbers are much smaller for a weekend conference.)

So far, their time commitment is around 2.5 hours.

That also doesn’t include travel time to get there and home again. If your speaker lives out of town, they’re spending a lot of time in the car traveling to and from your location. If your speaker lives 100 miles away, that’s another two hours to get to you, and two more to get home. Now we’re looking at a 6 – 7 hour time commitment just to give that one-hour talk.

Most speakers also use a slide deck to share their information. Good slide decks rely on a lot of visuals; they don’t use a lot of text and don’t squeeze too many bullet points onto a slide.

In fact, the less text and more visuals a slide deck has, the longer it probably took to make. As Blaise Pascal once said, “I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

It’s the same with slide decks: “simple” ones often take longer to make than “long” ones crammed with text. That’s because the speaker has a lot of knowledge, but they know what to leave out and what they should share.

So even the slide decks fall under the Iceberg Theory: The knowledge that’s being shared is supported by so much more knowledge than could fit on the slides.

All told, my slide decks take six hours to build from scratch, but only two if I rework a previous presentation to a new conference.

Assuming other speakers take that much time, their total time involved is anywhere from 8 – 13 hours, from the moment they accepted the invitation to speak through the time they get home when it’s over.

Bottom Line

While it may seem like a one-hour presentation only takes an hour, just remember that there’s so much more time that went into it than what you actually saw..

This is why good writing conferences are worth the time, money, and effort you spend in attending. You’re getting top–notch speakers who share years and decades of experience, investing nearly two days’ of of their own time to give you one hour’s knowledge that can help grow your writing career.

So treat them well, and be sure to thank them for what they’ve done.