Birds of a Feather: How About Being a Speaker?

Context

At Swiss PG Day 2026, I had the privilege of moderating a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session. A BoF session is a community-driven event designed for focused, interactive discussion among participants with shared interests.

I gave a brief introduction to the topic "How about being a speaker", taking from my brief experience of giving talks at Postgres community conferences. This was as much about me learning from others as it was to encourage aspiring speakers to submit to the next Call for Papers.

The room filled up with around 20 participants, an ideal group size to keep the dialogue lively and inclusive. I moderated the session, while Marion Baumgartner (Camptocamp), who usually acts as a room host, joined us as an active participant.

To kick off discussions, I prepared four slides and a custom deck of cards - an idea inspired by my colleagues Boriss Mejías and Floor Drees during an internal rehearsal.

My primary goal for the session was to inspire attendees to consider submitting their talk ideas for Postgres conferences, boost their confidence, and help everyone realize that we all have valuable knowledge and experiences to share with the community.
 

I wrote several "speaker tips" - ranging from genuinely helpful to humorously bad or context-dependent - on folded slips of paper and distributed them among the tables. Fortunately, I had enough for every group.

Here are a few examples of the prompts on the cards:

• Open by apologizing you’re not an expert
• Don’t shave for developer conferences
• Read out every word of each slide
• Never look the audience in the eyes
• Submit the CFP before you’ve figured out the content
• Rehearse only the first two minutes
• Memorize your talk word for word

Rather than dictating what was "right" or "wrong," the cards served their purpose perfectly: sparking debate, laughter, and spontaneous reflection.

One memorable dynamic occurred in a group consisting of a junior developer and his senior colleague. The senior was actively encouraging the junior to submit a proposal to a Call for Papers (CFP), but the younger developer didn't feel qualified enough yet. Moments like that made the whole session worthwhile, and I hope it gave him the nudge he needed.
 

Finding the Motivation: The Speaker's Ikigai

When planning this session, I reflected deeply on my own motivations:

• Encourage participants to speak at Postgres conferences
• Help community members feel confident and comfortable with public speaking
• Foster engaging, open dialogue and knowledge sharing
• Contribute meaningfully to the broader Postgres ecosystem
• Advance my own learning on what makes a good talk

The core visual slide of my presentation was a reinterpretation of the Japanese concept of ikigai (a framework shared with me by my former colleague Philippe Hoton). It illustrates the "sweet spot" that public speaking represents when your passion and profession intersect.

Let’s break down how this framework applies to speaking in the Postgres ecosystem:
 

By Eugenio Hansen, OFS - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125614092

• What you love: The Postgres topics and technology you geek out on
• What the world needs: Community networking, practical insights, and real-world knowledge exchange
• What you are good at: Your unique hands-on experience, problem-solving highlights, and technical passions
• What you can be paid for: Your everyday professional engineering or database administration work

If you work professionally in the Postgres ecosystem, you are likely already standing right at the intersection of this diagram—the speaker’s sweet spot!

My Journey: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

Standing on stage didn't always come naturally to me. When I attended my first conference—PGConf.EU 2023 in Prague—I had only been working with Postgres for about a year. The thought of presenting felt intimidating, and severe impostor syndrome kicked in immediately:

• "Look at these industry rockstars! They present complex content with such authority and energy."
• "I'm relatively new to Postgres, while these speakers have decades of deep technical experience."
• "I don't have anything unique or interesting enough to talk about."

Finding the Right Topic

The turning point came when I started working on a specific niche topic: the Postgres wire protocol from the application perspective. Working in a specialized area allowed me to gain deep knowledge quickly, and I eventually identified opportunities to improve documentation and tooling (which led to building pg_protoexport).

Taking the First Steps

Tom Kincaid noticed my work and encouraged me to present it internally at EnterpriseDB (EDB). Preparing those slides was an eye-opener: I realized I had accumulated far more insights than I originally thought.

Presenting online to colleagues was a fantastic stepping stone. Receiving constructive, positive feedback from respected peers - including Eric McCormack, Peter Eisentraut, Jakub Wartak, Álvaro Herrera, Robert Haas, Srinath Reddy, Moazzum Ali, and Zahid Khan - built my confidence significantly. I validated that the topic was relevant and that an application-centric perspective was genuinely valuable to others.

Additionally, I participated in Robert Haas’s PostgreSQL Hacking Workshop, which focused on Heikki Linnakangas’s session regarding the wire protocol from PGConf.EU 2024. This was a valuable opportunity to clarify complex concepts directly with the experts. I highly recommend these workshops; having the original developers co-hosting with Robert provides an unparalleled learning environment for anyone looking to deepen their technical understanding.

Moving to Larger Audiences

By PGDay Paris 2025, I had completed ‘pg_protoexport’ and decided to submit a proposal for a lightning talk. A five-minute slot felt low-stakes, though delivering a compelling narrative in such a short window was still a valuable challenge.

About a year later, Floor Drees encouraged me to submit a full session proposal for a conference in Europe. If you're wondering whether your topic is "good enough," don't hesitate: ask colleagues, consult mentors, or review past conference schedules. If you've spent time working with Postgres, you have a story worth telling. Conferences aren't just for veteran experts—they welcome perspectives at every level.

Practical Advice: Rehearsals and Feedback

At EDB, Floor Drees organizes internal presentation rehearsals where speakers test their material before live audiences while participants share live or asynchronous feedback (in a Google Doc).

This rehearsal process provides immense benefits:

• It establishes a clear preparation deadline, encouraging speakers to practice out loud beforehand.
• Internal feedback is consistently constructive, helping spot missing context or unclear formatting.
• It builds stage confidence, allowing speakers to refine pacing and delivery based on real audience reactions.

Having attended many of these sessions, I know how invaluable friendly critique is for continuous improvement.

A Proposal for Open Community Rehearsals

During PG Day Armenia 2026, organizers Emma Saroyan and Derk Van Veen hosted a speaker preparation meeting a week before the event. This initiative was fantastic, particularly for first-time speakers (including me). However, several speakers still faced common presentation pitfalls - such as dense slides, fast pacing, or avoiding eye contact - that structured practice runs could have resolved.

Many community members work at smaller companies without formal internal review channels. This raises an exciting opportunity: why not organize open, cross-company community rehearsals?

While technical events can sometimes feel competitive, the Postgres community thrives on open learning and collaboration. Establishing community-wide talk rehearsals could empower more aspiring speakers to share their voices, elevate presentation quality across conferences, and make public speaking accessible to everyone.

Call to Action

What do you think of this idea? Let's meet at PG Summit US, or PG Conf EU 2026 to talk about the idea or by mail xavier.fischer[at]enterprisedb.com, or you can also reach out to Floor Drees if you see her at a conference in the near future!