Writing a Killer Conference Proposal

If you’re planning to submit a proposal to Percona Live but suffering a little writer’s block, or at least want to be sure to make a good impression on our track selectors, there’s some great content online that can help. If you’re an old hand, you probably won’t need this, though it’s possible you’ll find some interesting stuff here nevertheless.

Your job is to make it easy for the selectors to choose your talk. Remember, too, that your proposal will be used to ‘sell’ your presentation on the conference website. So try to make it appealing.

There’s help online…

Here, I list some articles and presentations that could help you along the way:

• This article by Russ Unger breaks the task into steps of a process… those who pride themselves on their technical aptitude rather than their writing chops might find this structured approach helps.
• Experienced presenter Dave Cheney, open source contributor and project member for the Go programming language, has sat on both sides of the fence (proposing and selecting) and offers some great advice. Dave also references this excellent article on Medium by Karolina Szczur
• If you prefer to listen and/or watch, then this workshop presentation by blogger and MongoDB engineer Jesse Davis for PyLadies Global Diversity CFP Day 2018 might hit the spot. Or perhaps you prefer the style of an earlier talk referenced by Jesse, presented by Lacie Williams Henschel. Lacie is a Python and Django consultant.
• Too late for Percona Live in Austin, but this year’s Global Diversity CFP Day on March 2 could appeal. If you are a confident and experienced presenter, how about setting up a workshop to share your skills? You can find details on the website.
• Last but not least, O’Reilly hosts dozens of conferences every year and provides examples of what they look for in a good proposal.

So sharpen your pencil and go for it, you’ve nothing to lose. Don’t forget, the call for papers closes on Sunday, January 20, so don’t use this as an opportunity to put things off… we hope to release a few talks before the deadline this year, it could be you…Good luck with your submission!

If you have any great resources to add, please share them via the comments.

PS If you need any help, you are welcome to drop me a line.

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Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash ∎