Pixels Camp 2017 Call for Talks

How to submit a talk

Talk proposals are handled through GitHub Pull Requests. Follow the instructions below:

Make sure you're logged in to GitHub;
Fork this repository into your account;
Duplicate the my-awesome-talk_my-name.md template into a new file;
Rename the new file using your talk's title and your name (eg: pixels-camp-is-going-to-be-legen-dary_celso-martinho.md);
Edit the new file and fill in each section (do not delete the template file);
When you're ready, submit a Pull Request and paste your markdown file contents into the first comment.

Note: If you're proposing more than one talk, please open separate Pull Requests.

What happens next?

Anyone can comment (and vote) on your Pull Request.
If your talk is accepted we will merge the Pull Request.
We'll give feedback to anyone who submits a talk proposal even if isn't accepted.

The deadline for submitting talks is August 31st. After than we won't be accepting any more Pull Requests.

Speakers must also be participants, so don't forget to apply for Pixels Camp here: https://pixels.camp

What should be in the proposal?

Every proposal should have, at minimum, the following information:

Your Name
Your Availability (what days/times you are able to do this presentation)
Presentation Title
Presentation Description
Presentation Duration (typically 30 mins, but we're open minded)
Presentation Language

Related Files

If you want to include any other files related to your presentation, like keynotes, code samples, videos, etc, make a directory with the same name as your presentation and put the files in there.

Contact Info

Make sure we have a way to contact you! Either set up your e-mail address in your GitHub profile, or include it on your proposal.

Make makes a good proposal?

Before you submit your talk, ask yourself these questions and use the answers you come up with to either enrich your pitch or rethink your initial idea into a better, more fitting one.

Relevance

Is the talk relevant for the Pixels Camp attendance?
Does it make sense for a bunch of hard code technical audience to sit through your talk in the context of Pixels Camp?

Relevance is tricky as it doesn’t necessarily translate to geeky or codable. Sometimes interesting talks show up and aren’t even related to technology.

Novelty

Is it old news?
Has it been heavily discussed in the past?

Sometimes good talks get rejected because they get old. Try to awe the attendees with fresh insights!

Specificity

Is your proposal specific about the topic it approaches?

Specificity demands a lot more thought and planning, which in our experience are the two biggest keys to a successful session. The Pixels Camp audience tends to prefer minutia (ex: "HTTP/2 and what it means to Front-end") over inspirational, broader topics (ex: "The future of programming").

Context

Do you provide context to what you'll be talking about?

A speaker may lose its potential audience by failing to provide any context for the topic he or she is discussing. Please remember that a chunk of your attendees will be there to learn from you, and they may not take full advantage of that if you go straight into deep tech without proper basic explanations first. Make sure that you provide the necessary (small) intros to the technologies or topics you'll be discussing in your talk.

I got accepted

If and when your talk gets accepted, you'll immediately receive an email from the organization with all the info and steps necessary before it gets included in the official calendar. Hurray!

I got rejected

If your proposal gets rejected, don't be disappointed. And above all, don't give up, we have the Pixels Camp every year. Your talk might not have made it for any number of reasons and most of the time they've nothing to do with quality or your ability to deliver.

Maybe a similar topic got covered in the previous year, or this year, and the curators decided not to run it this time. Maybe there were too many similar technical talks, and the curators opted for other themes. Or maybe your proposal just didn’t quite convince us this time.

Either way what really matters is that you proposed the talk and you've shown motivation and initiative, which translates directly into the kind of attributes we're looking for in candidates. Karma points for you!

Thanks,

The Pixels Camp crew

carlosefr / talks