Ten minutes feels long until you introduce yourself, apologize for the clicker, and explain the agenda. You just spent 90 seconds.
Plan for 8 minutes of content and 2 minutes of buffer or questions. That is about 8 slides, not 20. Dokie's "300+ easy topics" do not mention the clock.
- 8 slides, 8 minutes, 2 minutes spare. Title does not get a speech.
- One claim per slide. If you need a second chart, you need a 20-minute slot.
- Rehearse standing with a timer. Sitting reads 15% faster.
- End on the ask or the recap at 8:30, even if you skip a story.
- Outline in GenPPT, then delete any slide you cannot justify in 45 seconds.
Timing grid
See how many slides per minute. For shorter, 2-minute speech topics.
Class topics
- Why later school start times keep showing up in sleep studies
- How a heat pump works, with one diagram
- The ethics of using AI on homework
- How a city compost program is paid for
- What "organic" means on a US label
- How closed captions get made
- A history of the 3.5mm jack, as a design lesson
- Why iodine is in salt
- How ranked-choice voting is counted
- Microplastics: what we know vs what we post
- The bus lane as policy, not paint
- How a credit score is built
- CRISPR in one analogy, with limits
- Why concussion protocols changed
- How a FOIA request works
- Food deserts vs food swamps, in our zip code
- How a 3D printer fails
- The economics of a school sports stadium
- What a clinical trial phase means
- How GPS time works
- A local zoning fight, explained fairly
- Why phone batteries die in the cold
- How a newsroom writes a correction
- Open source licenses in 8 minutes
- The daylight saving argument, with data
- How recycling is sorted in this city
- What a 401(k) match costs
- Indoor air after a wildfire
- How a union vote is run
- Fair use for a student YouTube clip
- The science of sourdough
- How congestion pricing cameras work
- Why bees dance
- A public library's ebook licenses
- How a recall hits a warehouse
- PFAS in drinking water, locally
- What "at-will" employment means here
- How subtitles differ from captions
- A 10-minute intro to heat inequality in cities
- How an index fund stays cheap
Work topics
- Why we should cap meetings at 8 hours a week
- How we will run the next incident review
- A 10-minute demo of the new checkout
- What the support queue is actually made of
- Salary bands: how ours work
- The case for writing the decision first
- How we will use AI on this team (rules)
- Q3 churn: one chart, two actions
- Onboarding that does not dump 40 links
- Vendor we should fire, with cost
- Accessibility bugs we keep shipping
- Why this metric is lying
- A 10-minute security tabletop
- Docs as a product: the 3 pages that matter
- Hiring screen that tests the job, not trivia
- The standup we should delete
- Roadmap: what we will not do
- Customer quote that should change Q4
- How we hand off on Friday
- Status report in 8 slides (template)
- Pricing experiment: method and kill criteria
- Why the PDF export is the product
- Office vs remote: what the data is, not the vibe
- A 10-minute brand critique of our own deck
- SOC 2 for people who are not in security
- The intern project we should fund
- Support macros that make us sound like bots
- Launch checklist that would have caught last miss
- What "owner" means on this team
- A 10-minute pitch of a small internal tool
For technical deep dives, technical presentation topics. For HR audiences, HR presentation topics.
What to cut
- Agenda slides that repeat the title
- "About me" beyond 15 seconds
- A second case study
- Definitions the room already knows
- Q&A on slide 3
Rehearse once with speaker notes hidden. If you cannot do it without reading, cut slides until you can.
Worked grid: how a heat pump works
Cut if needed: history of refrigeration, brand comparison, full install cost table.
Fun but finishable (one claim, two proofs)
- Why every movie now is 2.5 hours
- The economics of a school mascot
- How a meme travels in 48 hours
- Why stadiums get built and libraries wait
- A 10-minute history of the 3.5mm jack
- What your cafeteria tray says about waste
- Why group chats create fake urgency
- How a yearbook actually gets printed
FAQ
What is a good 10-minute topic? One claim you can prove twice. Not a survey of a field.
How many slides? About 8. Title does not get a speech. See how many slides per minute.
Easy student picks? Heat pumps, credit scores, ranked-choice counting, food labels.
Work picks? Incident review, one metric that is lying, a vendor to fire.
How do I finish on time? Rehearse standing. End recap at 8:00. Cut the second story.
Generate the 8-slide outline in GenPPT. Then present like the clock is on the wall, because it is.
