From Midnight Sessions to Meaningful Messages: My AWS New Voices Journey
A personal reflection on my AWS New Voices journey,including the commitment of attending late-night sessions from 12:00 AM to 1:30 AM.This blog shares how the experience helped me grow as a speaker by focusing on the audience,building a clear message,using slides with purpose and ending with meaningful action
Public speaking is not about sharing information. It is about helping people understand, connect and take action.
As someone who's part of AWS community activities, technical mentoring, user groups and cloud-focused sessions I enjoy sharing knowledge. Whether the topic is AWS, DevOps, cloud security, Kubernetes, automation or community learning I think technical knowledge is more meaningful when shared in a way that helps others grow.
My AWS New Voices journey made me think deeply about how I communicate ideas. It reminded me that a good talk is not about how much content is included. A good talk is about how the audience understands the message and how confidently they can take the next step.
Before this journey I often started preparing for a talk by thinking about the slides
I would ask myself:
- What should I include?
- How slides do I need?
- Which demo should I show?
- How technical depth should I add?
Those are questions but I realised they should not be the first questions.
The first question should be:
Who's my audience and what do they need from this talk?
That simple shift changed the way I think about speaking.
Audience First
One of my learnings was the importance of designing a talk from the audience’s point of view.
When we work in technology it is easy to focus on services, tools, architecture diagrams, commands and implementation steps. These are important. They only become valuable when the audience can understand why they matter.
If the audience is new to AWS the talk should give them confidence to start.
If the audience is already experienced the talk should provide insights they can apply.
If the audience is made up of students or early-career builders the talk should make the topic approachable.
If the audience is a community group the talk should encourage them to learn, build and share.
This helped me simplify my approach. Of preparing a talk only around what I know I now try to prepare around what the audience needs to take away.
That is why I believe audience comes first and slides come second.
Start with a Reason to Listen
Another lesson from this journey was the value of starting with a clear reason for the audience to care.
A technical talk should not begin with a list of topics. It should begin with a problem a question or a relatable situation.
For example if I am speaking about AWS cost optimization I could start with:
“Have you ever created a cloud demo and later realised the bill was higher than expected?”
That opening is simple but it connects with real experience. It helps the audience understand that the talk is not about AWS services. It is about solving a problem they may face.
Clear Message Matters
As engineers we often want to explain everything. We want to include architecture, best practices, troubleshooting, pricing, security, implementation and demos.. Too much information can make the main message harder to remember.
My learning journey helped me understand that a strong talk needs a message.
For example:
“Cloud security should be part of the delivery process, not an afterthought.”
Or:
“Automation is not about speed; it is about consistency and confidence.”
“Beginners do not need to know every AWS service to start building. They need a path and hands-on practice.”
When the message is clear the audience can remember it. When the message is too broad the talk may contain a lot of information. Leave less impact.
Slides Should Support the Story
Slides are important but slides are not the talk.
This was one of my mindset shifts. A slide deck should support the story not become the story by itself.
For topics slides can quickly become overloaded with text, screenshots, service names and architecture diagrams.. A good slide should make the topic easier to follow.
Now when I prepare slides I ask myself:
- Does this slide help the audience understand the message?
- Can this be shown with a diagram?
- Is this detail needed in the talk or can it be shared later as a reference?
- Will the audience listen to me. Will they spend the whole time reading the slide?
From Late-Night Learning to Community Stages
My AWS New Voices journey did not stop after I finished the training. It actually started to make a difference in how I gave presentations after that.
One time I gave a talk at the AWS London Well-Architected User Group. I talked about using AI to help with AWS Architected Assessments and AWS Security Agent. I covered things like practices for AWS Well-Architected, the Security Pillar and how to keep the cloud secure. I did not just focus on the details. I tried to explain the problem. How AI can make security reviews more useful and easier to understand. I wanted to show how this can help cloud teams.
Another time I gave a talk at OTel Night Birmingham. My topic was "Getting Started with OpenTelemetry on Amazon EKS". I talked about things like signals, instrumentation and how to observe applications without writing code. This time I applied what I learned from AWS New Voices to explain observability in a way. I did not bombard the audience with many technical details. I focused on the basics. How teams can use Amazon EKS to observe their applications more easily.
These talks really showed me that I was getting better at communicating. I was more careful about how I started a topic, how I connected with the audience and how I ended with something for them to take away.
For me AWS New Voices was not about becoming a better public speaker. It helped me become a communicator. It helped me move away from presenting technical information to delivering messages that are easy to understand easy to remember and easy to act on. AWS New Voices helped me to do this with AWS New Voices. I am grateful for the experience, with AWS New Voices.
Growth Through Reflection
This journey also helped me grow as a speaker by reflecting on my own delivery style.
I learned to think carefully about the pace of my talk the flow between ideas and the way I close a session. I also became more aware of how important it's to make the audience feel included especially when the topic is technical.
Public speaking is not about being perfect. It is about being useful, clear and authentic.
Every time I prepare a session now I try to focus on three things:
- What should the audience understand?
- What should they remember?
- What action should they take next?
End with Action
A talk should not end only with "Thank you.”
It should leave the audience with a step.
That action can be simple:
- Try one AWS hands-on lab.
- Read one documentation page.
- Build one project.
- Join a local AWS User Group.
- Write a blog about what you learned.
- Submit your talk proposal.
- Help someone else start their learning journey.
When the audience leaves with a next step the talk continues to create impact even after the session ends.
Final Thoughts
AWS New Voices helped me grow not as a speaker but as a communicator.
It reminded me that technical knowledge is powerful. Clear communication makes it more impactful. As a community organizer, mentor and speaker this lesson is very important to me.
Going forward I want my talks to be audience-focused simple, practical and action-oriented. Whether I speak about AWS, DevOps, cloud security, Kubernetes or open source I want the audience to leave with confidence.
Every builder has a voice. Every experience can help someone. Every talk is an opportunity to make learning easier for others.
My biggest takeaway is simple:
Start with the audience. Build a message. Use slides to support the story. End, with action.
Audience first.
Slides second.
Impact always.
Enjoyed reading this content? Let the author know!
Your likes, comments, shares, and saves help creators reach more builders.
Loading recommendations
Loading article