How to create an effective Call for Papers (CFPs)

You don’t need to know everything about a topic to have something worth sharing. Your experiences, lessons learned, and side projects can be the starting point for a conference talk—but how do you turn them into a compelling proposal?

This session introduces a practical five-step framework for preparing a Call for Proposals (CFP) submission: identify the right event, understand its audience, find your story, research its relevance, and brainstorm and shortlist your ideas. We’ll also explore local meetups as a starting point and how AI can support your research.

Whether you’re considering your first submission or looking for a clearer approach, you’ll leave with a framework to help you choose a relevant topic and take the next step toward sharing it.

Transcript

1. How to create an effective CFPs Imma Valls Staff Developer Advocate
2. AGENDA Agenda 1 Where are you now? 2 Build your Winning CFP 3 Take the Next Step
3. 1 / 3 Where are you now?
4. Where are you on your speaking journey? What’s stopping you from presenting a cfp? What do you know that others can learn from?
5. 2 / 3 Build your Winning CFP
6. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
7. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
8. STEP 1 Identify Event • In-person or online • Local? • If not local, do you have support for traveling? • Would you attend? CPF Aggregators https://github.com/scraly/developers-conferences-agenda https://callingallpapers.com
9. STEP 1 Identify Event CONFERENCE I donʼt feel ready for a conference CFP MEETUPS Local meetups accept talks without → call for papers. Test your talk there!
10. STEP 1 Identify Event Format Talk Workshop Keynote Panel Regular talks 3050 min) Hands-on 90+ min) Inspiring Moderator Lightning talks 515 min) Tutorial 6090 min) Conference openings Guest
11. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
12. STEP 2 Understand the Audience Goals and Objectives Are you part of that Experience and career levels Who attends the event? audience as well? What do they need from If you donʼt know, you the event? Why do they can ask the organizers! attend? Audience before Content
13. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
14. STEP 3 Find your Story • Work or pet projects • Experience • Best Practices • Team-up with another speaker! • … Grafana & Observability TALKS & DASHBOARDS Deep Technical Topics ARCHITECTURE & SYSTEMS Pet Projects & Hacks EXPERIMENTS & CODE Community & Culture PEOPLE & LESSONS
15. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
16. STEP 4 Research & Relevance • What topics have been presented before at this event? • What do you know about the event organizers and the review committee? • What is going on right now? • What are people talking about? • Who else is talking about your topic and what do they say?
17. STEP 4 Use AI? GOOD HELP FOR RESEARCH https://www.cncf.io/blog/2025/08/22/how-i-team-up-withgenai-to-craft-conference-talk-proposals/
18. Framework Step 1 Identify Event Step 2 Step 3 Audience Story → Understand → Find your Step 4 Step 5 relevance & shortlist → Research & → Brainstorm
19. STEP 5 Brainstorm and shortlist What do you want to share? What does the audience wants? Your Topic What does the research say?
20. 3 / 3 Take the Next Step
21. Take the Next Step • GrafanaCON 2027 CFP: https://pretalx.com/grafanacon-2027/cfp • Find conferences (or ask AI to find them for you) ◦ https://callingallpapers.com ◦ https://github.com/scraly/developers-conferences-agenda • Get help for GrafanaCON submissions in the #cfp-speaker-office-hours channel • Get your application reviewed in the #community-champions channel • How to use AI https://www.cncf.io/blog/2025/08/22/how-i-team-up-with-genai-to-craft-con ference-talk-proposals • Advice from “experienced” speakers: https://womeninapis.substack.com/s/get-ready-sessions • Attend a Women in APIs online / hybrid workshop https://www.womeninapis.com/our-programs/get-%2Fspeaking
22. Thank you