Defying the Odds: How to Apply (and Get Selected!) to Speak at Conferences

Interested in speaking, but have no idea where to start?

How do I find conferences to submit to? What do I write my talk on? Do I have anything to say that would be interesting to a conference audience? Spoiler alert, yes! And what the heck is a CFP?!

All these burning questions, plus many more, will be answered in this talk. You'll gain useful resources on where to look for conferences online, tips on brainstorming talk ideas, and a guide on how to rock your CFP. You'll walk away with the tools and knowledge to apply and get selected to speak at a conference this year.

Transcript

1. Kelsey Pedersen Stitch Fix Eng Summit, Feb 2019 D E F Y I N G T H E O D D S H O W TO A P P LY ( A N D G E T S E L E C T E D ! ) TO S P E A K AT CO N F E R E N C E S
3. • RubyConf 2017 (New Orleans) • PyCon 2018 (Ohio) • RubyXElixir Conf 2018 (Taiwan) • Ruby Meetup (Austin) • DevOps Meetup (Singapore) • DevOpsDays (Singapore) • RubyConf 2018 (LA) • RubyConfAU (Australia) - this Friday
5. T O P I C S • Find where to speak • ☝ Select topic • Write the proposal
7. S T E P 1 : F I N D W H E R E T O S P E A K
9. Kelsey!
10. D I S C O V E R I N G C O N F E R E N C E S • papercall.io • Ruby: rubyconferences.org • Searching #CFP on Twitter • https://confs.tech • http://confreaks.tv/ • Join list serves - e.g. Women Who Code • Javascript: https://blog.jscrambler.com/14-javascript-conferences-in-2019- every-developer-should-attend/ • Go: https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Conferences
16. D I S C O V E R I N G C O N F E R E N C E S • papercall.io • Ruby: rubyconferences.org • Searching #CFP on Twitter • https://confs.tech • http://confreaks.tv/ • Join list serves - e.g. Women Who Code • Javascript: https://blog.jscrambler.com/14-javascript-conferences-in-2019- every-developer-should-attend/ • Go: https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Conferences
17. S T E P 2 : S E L E C T T O P I C
18. T O P I C • How did you get to where you are? • What’s a project you’ve worked on outside of Stitch Fix? • What’s a project you’ve worked on at Stitch Fix?
19. T O P I C • Scaling for client growth • Micro-service based architecture • Data science in software apps • SOX, GDPR, regulations etc. • Remote team collaboration • New business expansion - mens, international, kids • Fraud, security
20. U S E T H E T R A C K T O P I C S A S I N S P I R AT I O N F O R Y O U R TA L K
21. T H E G E N E R A L T R A C K
23. S T E P 3 : W R I T E T H E P R O P O S A L
24. C F P : C A L L F O R PA P E R S
25. C R A F T I N G Y O U R P R O P O S A L T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
26. “ A P P LY I N G T O C O N F E R E N C E S ” V S . “ D E F Y I N G T H E O D D S : H O W T O A P P LY ( A N D G E T S E L E C T E D ! ) T O S P E A K AT C O N F E R E N C E S ” T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
27. T I T L E • Being Good: An Introduction to Robo- and Machine Ethics • Designing an Engineering Team: Making Room for Everyone • Cats, The Musical! Algorithmic Song Meow-ification • Graphics and Simulations (and Games), Oh My! T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
28. T I T L E • Focus on energy and intrigue • Utilize a 2 part title to pack more information • Tactics like “:” or “!” - simple ways to improve your title • Continue to revise as you work on your abstract and description T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
29. A B S T R A C T Defying the Odds: How to Apply (& Get Selected!) to Speak at Conferences “Interested in speaking, but have no idea where to start? You'll gain useful resources on where to look for conferences online, tips on brainstorming talk ideas, and a guide on how to rock your CFP. You'll walk away with the tools and knowledge to apply and get selected to speak at a conference this year.” T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
30. A B S T R A C T • Use a two-paragraph approach • Paragraph 1: Start off by engages the reader by defining the problem • Paragraph 2: Start with “In this talk, you will learn….” and clearly define the specific items that the attendee will learn from your talk T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
31. A B S T R A C T It’s Down! Simulating Incidents in Production “Who loves getting paged at 3am? No one. In responding to incidents — either at 3am or the middle of the day — we want to feel prepared and practiced in resolving production issues. In this talk, you’ll learn how to practice incident response by simulating outages in your application.” T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
32. A B S T R A C T The Dangers of Tribal Knowledge “Are you constantly tapped on the shoulder for answers? Tired of being the Google for your team? Or perhaps you’re the new kid, having to ask a dozen different people to find answers to all your questions? These are the consequences of tribal knowledge. In this talk we’ll discuss how to have a team that self-serves, finds answers on their own, without forcing them to wade through a colossal employee handbook.” T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
33. A B S T R A C T Yes, You Should Provide a Client Library For Your API “Congratulations! You’ve launched a RESTful JSON-based API, and now anyone can call your service by making HTTP requests. But is that enough? While HTTP-REST by itself can enable access to your service, an API client library can provide significant benefits in safety, security, readability, and ease of use. In this session, you’ll learn API client design patterns and best practices honed from releasing hundreds of APIs at Google, and you’ll discover tools that can take the tedium out of building, testing, and documenting your API clients for Ruby, and across other languages.” T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
34. A B S T R A C T • Keep it articulate with an engaging beginning • Use strong power words • Focus on what will the attendee learn T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
35. D E TA I L S / D E S C R I P T I O N • FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, etc… • This should feel like an outline. It’s easier for you to touch on your key sections of your talk, and easier for the reviewer to understand the key points of your talk. T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
37. # T E C H - C O N F E R E N C E S
38. P I T C H • This is usually about 500 words too • Explain why you are in a unique position to talk about this topic, e.g. you worked on the project and learned x, y, z T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
39. B I O • Daniel Azuma is a senior engineer at Google, where he leads the Ruby and Elixir teams, building libraries and tools for users of his favorite languages on Google Cloud Platform. He lives with his wife in the Seattle area, and loves playing the piano, skiing, and having deep conversations with cats. • Jack Danger is a linguist, an engineering leader, and a prolific open source contributor. He has commits in Ruby core, in Rails core, and he's managed multiple teams that own and operate massive Rails applications. Gusto is his 7th startup. • Rubyist, language nerd, digital nomad, ESL instructor, writer and illustrator: Annie is a multi-passionate developer with a five year full-stack background and a history of never staying in the same place for long. She currently works at Heroku as a support engineer. T I T L E A B S T R A C T D E S C R I P T I O N P I T C H B I O
41. – V I C T O R I A G O N D A “If a writer can’t take the time to write a polished proposal, how can I trust that they’ll put the effort into creating the talk?”
42. S U B M I T Y O U R TA L K S U B M I S S I O N P R O C E S S
43. B L I N D R E V I E W P R O C E S S S U B M I S S I O N P R O C E S S
44. H O W D O C O M M I T T E E S W O R K • Conference organizers - logistics of the entire conference. Bigger picture. • Track leaders - selecting the talks for her/his track. Sometimes one person, or a group of folks.
45. F I N A L R O U N D S U B M I S S I O N P R O C E S S
46. YAY O R N AY ! S U B M I S S I O N P R O C E S S
47. – E L O I S E R I S TA D , A U T H O R “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel”
48. D I S C O V E R I N G C O N F E R E N C E S • papercall.io • Ruby: rubyconferences.org • Searching #CFP on Twitter • https://confs.tech • http://confreaks.tv/ • Join list serves - e.g. Women Who Code • Javascript: https://blog.jscrambler.com/14-javascript-conferences-in-2019- every-developer-should-attend/ • Go: https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Conferences
49. G O O D L U C K ! http://bit.ly/applying-to-conferences