“Dear Conference Organizer, I saw on your website you are offering guidance to help me create a successful talk at your conference? I’m a bit nervous as is the first time I am attempting to speak publicly at a technical conference and I would appreciate some guidance on what you think would help create a compelling and informative presentation. I’ve included a document with a draft of my abstract, can you take a look? “
⏳ 2 months later ⌛
You share your final slide and finally muster up the courage to look up into the crowd: a sea of disappointed faces slaps you in the face. You feel numb, your stomach drops, you’re dizzy, oh god you’re gonna puke… 😵💫 🤢 but then, you hear it…
👏🏼 The applause 👏🏼
They are erupting in enthusiastic applause 😮 They loved it so much that they were disappointed it was coming to an end! A crowd forms around you - not to pick you apart with irrelevant questions but a friendly group of folks wishing you congratulations and expressing how much they appreciated your thoughtful perspective!
Sounds pretty cool right? 🤩 You can actually do this! As software engineers, we spent a lot of our time reading documentation and spec guides. This instinct is so common I have found myself googling some pretty ridiculous things. Giving a successful tech talk is a project that must be engineered! So let’s use our engineering skill set to “read the fucking documentation” on what you can do to help ensure your success.
A meme to appease the meme lords 🙏🏼
🏅 The first requirement you must conquer to achieve tech talk rockstar status is to formulate a top-tier abstract. No matter how the conference reviews their Cfp (call for proposal/papers) the abstract is the first impression you make to people considering adding your session to the conference program. If your talk is accepted it is the key piece of info potential attendees consider when evaluating if they are interested in hearing what you have to say (if they even make it past the title).
For over a decade, Alex Miller has reviewed thousands of talk abstracts before watching the ideas come to life on stage. We’ve worked together to provide a contrived example to illustrate his process and the things he typically considers when reviewing a session proposal. We have a couple of goals in sharing this:
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/6a66ba46-3ace-455b-a4e2-ec66fd3f498a/re-logo-white-bg.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/6a66ba46-3ace-455b-a4e2-ec66fd3f498a/re-logo-white-bg.png" width="40px" /> Full disclojure: Writing as an organizer of the reClojure conference we, as a non-profit and community led organization are very invested in supporting folks who have hesitations about submitting. We believe the perspective of newcomers is extremely valuable. We want to support you sharing your journey and we want it to be a positive experience. We believe this is a key part of promoting a healthy ecosystem and a flourishing Clojure Community.
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Once you’ve come up with an idea for a technical talk (a “session”), it’s time to create a proposal. There are various platforms to facilitate this and the one I’ve seen emerge as the most common is Sessionize.
💡 Tip: Set yourself up for success by onboarding and creating a profile on Sessionize even if you don’t currently have an idea for a session. This will reduce the friction when you are ready to submit.
As part of your Session Proposal, you will include an abstract. The abstract is designed to capture the interest of the audience. There are two important parts of your abstract: the title and the description.
This is the abstract I submitted as part of my session proposal. The Submission Guidelines provided by the conference are also listed below.
