The best advice I can give is:

1. Know the audience you're talking to. I've given a few talks to various small organizations, but then also taught a course on "energy and our future" (my energy policy course) to undergraduates at my university.

What "matters" to each potential constituency is what you need to pay attention to in order to connect. With some groups, it was a bunch of relatively wealthy white guys--others a diverse set of mostly women; with the undergraduates, it was a diverse group of people who were worried about getting a job. I modified the talk accordingly and tried to provide germane examples.

2. If you have 30 minutes scheduled, I usually plan to talk for 10--and by that I mean the 10 minute presentation that you give in the mirror that takes 7 minutes.

That is not a lot of time. If you have 60 minutes, plan to talk for 20 tops--which means 15 minutes into your mirror. You will always go longer than you think.

Have materials ready to structure the time after you have finished the formal talk...sometimes you will be bombarded with questions, sometimes you will get crickets. It depends on your comfort level, dynamism, and how you have related to the audience. It could also be that the audience is hungry and hasn't heard a word you've said.

You also must learn that speaking about peak oil is not about you, it's about your words and your ability to convey them. People are not there to see you, so try to check your ego at the door. It makes you better, trust me.

If this is a group of folks who are new to the concept, inevitably they will respond viscerally to peak oil, usually with anger or denial if they are new to the argument. Be prepared for this, and do not egg it on. Remain calm and de-fuse the situation as best you can. Jokes are good. Facts can work when presented non-confrontationally. Personal stories work too. Your job is to expose them to the logic and facts, you can't digest it for them too.

If this is a group of folks who are relatively well-versed, then you can get wonky. However, even then, you can lose people with term-laden jargony crap. Use your words and your time wisely either way.

For most, more learning occurs in the interactions between speaker and audience, and audience members to each other, than in a direct lecture; therefore the direct lecture has to be "setting the table" for future learning and interaction...not the dispensation of "The Truth." Not in the world we live in. If you have learned anything from here at TOD, I hope you have learned that.

3. You cannot convey or know everything. Don't try. Keep your logic and facts simple and straightforward. Don't cuff it either. If you don't know--SAY YOU DON'T KNOW and that you will find out the answer. Have your card there and offer an email address to folks for questions afterwards.

4. Learn from your time with the audience. Critique yourself when you get home--I have a written journal of every lecture or talk I have ever given. What didn't you remember? What could you have done better? What didn't "flow?" That's how you improve and become better...

This is not an easy thing to do. It's even harder to do it well.