If I am reaching for my phone every three minutes to look up some acronym you just mentioned in a talk, you are making me work to listen to you. Don’t make me work to listen to you. The minute I grab my phone, you’ve lost me for the duration, because I’m into my email and Slack.
Define your acronyms in the first mention. It’s fine to say, “You’re probably all familiar with MCP, Model Context Protocol.” Even if the thousands in the basement ballroom at Moscone use MCP every day, the few newbies who don’t know what MCP is will thank you, as will the people who watch your talk later on YouTube!
Be careful with your references too. If you’re going to bring up Jevons Paradox, don’t just give us a graph, give us an example. You’ve always got different types of learners in your audience.
In the tech industry, we are great at talking to ourselves. Building the skill to talk to people outside of our industry is, these days, an absolute necessity.
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