{"id":101,"date":"2005-10-08T08:35:47","date_gmt":"2005-10-08T15:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=101"},"modified":"2005-10-08T12:14:44","modified_gmt":"2005-10-08T19:14:44","slug":"speaking-at-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2005\/10\/speaking-at-conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking at Conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shel\u00adley\u2019s post\u00ading Maids, Mom\u00admies, and Mis\u00adtresses<\/a> made me decide to throw in my own few cents on what makes a good con\u00adfer\u00adence sub\u00admis\u00adsion, and how talks are accep\u00adted, to add to what Kathy Sierra<\/a> and Adam Trachten\u00adburg<\/a> said (and there are good points in both). I\u2019ve chaired a con\u00adfer\u00adence since 2001, organ\u00adized tracks, and been a speak\u00ader at vari\u00adous con\u00adfer\u00adences for many years, so I know some\u00adthing about the subject.<\/p>\n

Num\u00adber 1 has to be: if there are guidelines, read them and act on them! The con\u00adfer\u00adence organ\u00adizers wrote them for a reas\u00adon. I\u2019m always amazed how many people obvi\u00adously don\u2019t read the ones I have for XML<\/span> 2005 at Abstract Writ\u00ading Hints<\/a> \u2014 we get abstracts that are two sen\u00adtences long, with mis\u00adspellings, and acronyms used wrongly. The review\u00aders uncere\u00admeni\u00adously dump all of these.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been involved in lots of con\u00adfer\u00adences and they range from the peer-reviewed to the \u201cpeople we know or who pay get pref\u00ader\u00adence\u201d; you need to fig\u00adure out which con\u00adfer\u00adence you want to speak at and why, and which sys\u00adtem they use, and how to have your talk accep\u00adted in that sys\u00adtem. If the inform\u00ada\u00adtion isn\u2019t on the con\u00adfer\u00adence web site about how talks are selec\u00adted, email someone from the organ\u00adiz\u00ading com\u00admit\u00adtee and ask! Or find the name of a speak\u00ader from the pre\u00advi\u00adous year and ask them \u2014 most people don\u2019t mind a brief polite email ask\u00ading how they got on the program. <\/p>\n

At the XML<\/span> 2005 Con\u00adfer\u00adence I chair we use a blind peer review pro\u00adcess to grade the abstracts. The Plan\u00adning Com\u00admit\u00adtee then takes those grades and looks for pro\u00adgram bal\u00adance to cov\u00ader inter\u00adest\u00ading top\u00adics, know\u00ading who the speak\u00aders are. This sort of sys\u00adtem means that if you write a good abstract on an inter\u00adest\u00ading top\u00adic, that isn\u2019t topped by an even bet\u00adter abstract on a related top\u00adic, you\u2019ll find your\u00adself on the pro\u00adgram. (Key\u00adnotes are a dif\u00adfer\u00adent story, of course, they\u2019re invited). Most of the speak\u00aders each year are new speak\u00aders; some are \u201cper\u00aden\u00adni\u00adals\u201d but that\u2019s because they are involved in inter\u00adest\u00ading work and know how to describe it in ways that make the review\u00aders want to attend the talk. The blind review sys\u00adtem is biased towards sub\u00admit\u00adters who can explain what they\u2019re doing and why it\u2019s inter\u00adest\u00ading in 500 words or less, but I fig\u00adure that\u2019s a reas\u00adon\u00adable indic\u00adat\u00ador for being a good speak\u00ader as well. It does\u00adn\u2019t always work that way (and we col\u00adlect attendee reviews of the speak\u00aders each year to catch those cases), but usu\u00adally it does. Oh, and anoth\u00ader thing \u2014 it\u2019s so much easi\u00ader to have 100+ people help us fig\u00adure out which talks are good than to rely on only 7 people on a Plan\u00adning Committee! <\/p>\n

The final piece of advice I\u2019d give, once your talk is accep\u00adted, is to prac\u00adtise, if you\u2019re not an exper\u00adi\u00adenced speak\u00ader. Even bet\u00adter, record your talk (audio and video) and watch the video to fig\u00adure out what you can do bet\u00adter. Prac\u00adtise to your\u00adself, the cat, or your fam\u00adily. Doing some pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal train\u00ading is good, but being famil\u00adi\u00adar with the mater\u00adi\u00adal so you\u2019re not talk\u00ading to the pro\u00adjec\u00adted slides, or your notes, is bet\u00adter. Being pre\u00adpared for likely ques\u00adtions is also good, and hav\u00ading a couple of \u201cpro\u00adposed\u201d ques\u00adtions to give the chair of your ses\u00adsion should nobody in the audi\u00adence have ques\u00adtions nev\u00ader hurts. In oth\u00ader words, be prepared!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shel\u00adley\u2019s post\u00ading Maids, Mom\u00admies, and Mis\u00adtresses made me decide to throw in my own few cents on what makes a good con\u00adfer\u00adence sub\u00admis\u00adsion, and how talks are accep\u00adted, to add to what Kathy Sierra and Adam Trachten\u00adburg said (and there are good points in both). I\u2019ve chaired a con\u00adfer\u00adence since 2001, organ\u00adized tracks, and been \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cSpeak\u00ading at Conferences\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}