Fresh off 150 reviews for DjangoCon Europe, here are my tips for people wanting to improve their conference talk proposals.
The goal
DjangoCon Europe 2024 received 150 talk proposals. The program committee had to select 30 talks. That’s a 20% acceptance rate. The goal of your proposal is to make it into the top 10% to be guaranteed a spot.
The baseline
First off, if you do those five things, your proposal will already be in the top 50% of submissions:
- Fill in the fields
- Use Markdown-ish formatting
- Light usage of emojis
- Explain acronyms
- Add an outline with minutes
It’s common for proposals to only be partly filled. While lots of fields are optional and it’s ok to leave them empty, if you only use half of the fields on the form, reviewers might question how much effort you put in.
Assuming you’ve filled the fields, take some time to also format some of the text. Keep in mind reviewers will look at tens of proposals in a row, any tweak you can do to make your proposal easier to read is worth it. For example – add an outline of the talk. Add an estimation fo the time spent in each area. That’ll make it clear how you plan to use the time.
Meeting this baseline will guarantee your proposal will be getting a fair shake. To make it to a selection, we need to go further.
The top 10%
This is what makes the difference in my opinion:
- Read the conference’s selection process documentation. And details of the call for proposal. Think of where your talk proposal fits.
- Show nuance. Reviewers tend to not like one-sided proposals, and even less so product marketing. Talk pros and cons, or frame your talk as a journey.
- Show depth. Lots of topics will have already been covered in the past. It’s not a dealbreaker, but showing a novel angle or your specific expertise will help.
- Be clear about what and how it’s covered. Is your talk a case study? A how-to? A demo? How much interaction can we expect? Show reviewers that you have a clear picture of how you’ll present the topic.
Do all of the above, and you’re guaranteed a spot in the top 20%. To make it to the top 10%, we need to go one step further.
Multiple proposals
Simple as that! I would recommend two proposals, no more. And have them be on different topics. We received lots of last-minute proposals for this year’s conference – and lots of them were excellent! Send a proposal you’re confident in, and a second one that’s a bit more experimental.
