Time's almost up for Speakers, May 25th

Just a couple of days left to get those talks in

We’ve had an excellent response so far and I hesitate to make the job of narrowing these down even harder, but we’re down to the final 3 days so a reminder is warranted.

Tips for Talks

Several people have reached out asking for advice on how to improve their odds and it seems only fair to share what I’ve said with everyone else. Here’s all I’ve got.

What type of talks are you looking for?

Anything related to software: design, architecture, development, operations, management, productivity, etc.

This is a “big tent” conference. The single most important thing to me is that the subject matters to you. If you think it’s interesting and important, your urgency will come through in the talk and the audience will get that.

Does length of the talk matter?

Initially, I would have said no because I didn’t know how many talks to expect. I’m happy to report we’ve received twice as many talk submissions as my initial optimistic target.

It will be easier for me to work in more short talks, so I’d strongly suggest submitting Intermediate (20-30 minute) and Lightning (5-10 minute) submissions at this phase. I’m only planning to do 2-3 full sessions (45-60 minutes) to make it possible to work in more topics in the single track.

Any other talk biases?

Narrowing these talks down is going to be hard. Very hard.

But I am absolutely sticking to what I originally said when we relaunched: emphasizing meetup groups is a significant factor here.

If you’re representing a meetup group, make sure that’s included in the topic submission. It doesn’t even have to be a Greenville meetup. I’ll even accept “regional” from anywhere in the South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee area.

What if my talk isn’t selected?

This conference is intended to be an amplifier for everyone involved, sponsors and speakers alike. If your talk doesn’t make it into this year’s conference pool, stay tuned because I’m working on some options that could be interesting post-conference as well.

The decisions will not be easy based on what I have seen.

Last Call!

If you’ve been thinking about getting that talk submitted, now is the time!