Proposal Advice

So You Want To Present a Talk/Tutorial/Poster At PyCon

Many more proposals are submitted for talks, tutorials, and posters than can be accepted. You can increase your chances of getting accepted if you follow these recommendations:

  • Fill out your outline and biography completely, but concisely. The outline and background information often are used to eliminate proposals during the first cut, so incomplete details may be a cause for early rejection of a potentially great talk or tutorial. Don't let this happen to you!

  • If you've given a talk, tutorial, or other presentation before, especially at an earlier PyCon or another conference, include that information as well as a link to a video if available. If you have never given a talk or tutorial at PyCon, you will dramatically increase your chances of having your proposal accepted if you link to a video of a presentation you have given somewhere else.

  • Provide a link to source code, articles, blog posts, or other writing that adds context to the presentation.

  • Include quantitative data where possible. For example, if your website serves 500 million users per day, then include that detail in your outline.

  • Clearly identify the audience for the talk or tutorial. Is your audience an experienced Windows developer, or a junior Linux, web developer, etc?

  • Pair up with an experienced speaker/presenter. This is especially true for tutorials - if you are new, or nervous about presenting a talk or tutorial, sometimes teaming up with an experienced speaker can help you not just put together a solid proposal, but they can co- present with you at the conference.

References

speaking/proposal_advice Recently modified by jessenoller: Aug. 14, 2011, 2:23 p.m. (History)