Getting your talk accepted: write a convincing talk proposal – Jacinta Richardson

Background

• On a lot of papers committees
• LCA, SAGE-AU, OSDC

Pick Conference you want to speak at

• Some easier to get into than others
• SAGE-AU 50%
• OSDC 50%
• YAPC easy
• OS Bridge – harder
• OSCON – 30-50% chance
• everywhere else – medium
• LCA – really hard. 5x the proposals received than accepted

Speaker rewards

• Free entry

Call for Proposals

• Not always widely distributed
• Join mailing lists, watch websites, ask

Write Abstract

• The hard bit
• Some confs narrow or wide on talk topics
• Audience 1 – The programme Comittee
  • Doesn’t know if you are a good speaker
  • Look for link to video of you speaking
  • If no video then assume if writing bad/good then speaking similar
  • Check spelling and writing style
  • Tell a story but not too long
  • Not academia , avoid insane amounts of jargon
  • Paragraphs good. Might only read the first
  • “read first sentence of each paragraph”
• Audience 2 – The attendees
  • Why your talk?
  • Against other options
  • Good title
  • Skip over – “X for fun and profit” , “making X sexy” , “What I did on my X holidays”
  • 5 or fewer words for title
  • Convincing first paragraph or even the first sentence

Ask for help

• From usergroups
• Or people you have met at LCA
• people on the papers comittee

Useful