How to Write a Great Talk Proposal for DockerCon LIVE 2021

First off, a big thank you to all those who have already submitted a talk proposal for DockerCon LIVE 2021. We’re seeing some really excellent proposals and we look forward to reviewing many more! We opened the CFP on February 8th and with a few more weeks to go before we close the CFP on March 15th there’s still lots of time to submit a talk. 

If you’re toying with the idea of submitting a talk but you’re still not sure whether or not your topic is interesting enough, or how to approach your topic, or if you just need a little push in the right direction to write up your proposal and click on “Send”, below are a few resources we thought you might find interesting. 

Amanda Sopkin wrote a great article a few years ago that has now become a reference for conference organizers sharing tips on how to get a technical talk accepted for a conference.  We also like Todd Lewis’ 13 tips on how to write an awesome talk proposal for a tech conference. Other interesting articles include: 

• How to write a successful conference proposal by Karolina Szczur
• Tips for your next tech conference by Rob Reilly
• How to prepare and write a tech conference talk by Lena Reinhard

The Audience at DockerCon

As you prepare to write your proposal, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is the audience you’ll be speaking to. Remember that the people in the audience will be a lot like you – keen to discover new ways to simplify and accelerate their workflow, and exploring the right choice tools, application stacks, and deployment environments for each project. You should also expect a broad spectrum of companies and organizations attending DockerCon, large and small, for-profit and non-profit, and from a plethora of industries (eg. aviation, education, retail, health, aerospace, finance, robotics, etc..)

What we are looking for 

The theme of this year’s DockerCon is developer team collaboration in the new remote-first world.

Before submitting a talk proposal, please make sure that your topic falls under one or several of the following thematic buckets:

• Team Collaboration
  • Configuring and managing teams in Docker Hub; Configuring and sharing local development environments;
• Secure Development
  • Security best practices; Shifting security concerns left; Finding and fixing vulnerabilities;
• Best Practices
  • Dockerfiles and build best practices; Setting up local development environments;
• Case Studies / Lessons Learned
  • Lessons learned when starting with Docker toolchain; Case studies around streamlining and delivering features faster; Lessons learned as you matured your SDLC and Docker;
• Contributing to Docker
  • How to get started contributing; Understanding open source software and how Docker is developed;
• App Modernization and Migration
  • Best practices in refactoring monolithic applications to cloud-first using Docker; Moving your applications to the cloud;

First timer? Fantastic! 

Everyone has to start somewhere and a virtual conference makes it a lot less intimidating to share your knowledge. If you aren’t sure what to talk about, think about an interesting problem you’ve solved, details of your day-to-day workflow, and ask a friend what they think you should talk about. Sometimes the best topics are things that a coworker finds interesting about your skills or role. 

How DockerCon LIVE works

To allow for conversation and ensure a stress-free delivery for the speaker, session talks for DockerCon LIVE will be pre-recorded and played at a specific time during the conference. Speakers will be in chat with the audience during their session and be available to answer questions. Worry not– the Docker team will help speakers prepare, record and review their content. We love the virtual format of DockerCon LIVE and we are super excited about all the improvements we will bring to our conference platform which will provide an even better experience for speakers (new and seasoned) and attendees alike.

We’re here to help

We’re always happy to chat about your ideas or answer any questions you may have so make sure to join the DockerCon’s channel #dockercon2021 on our Community slack and drop us a line or just ping @Peter (Mckee) or @William (Quiviger) directly. 

Last but not least don’t forget to pre-register here to receive notifications about when registrations for DockerCon LIVE 2021 officially open!