Would you like to be a speaker at a tech conference? That’s an excellent idea! The first step is writing the proposal, the famous CFP response, or talk proposal (yes, tech people love anglicisms).
The acronym CFP – Call For Papers – comes from academic conferences where a paper is a research article. The same term is used for tech conferences, but it’s a very different exercise. You also see CFS for Call For Speakers. Although rarer, it’s ultimately more fitting!
The talk proposal is the sales brochure for your conference presentation: it needs to make organizers want to select you and attendees want to come see you. Organizers typically receive 5 to 10 times more proposals than available slots, and attendees have to choose from dozens of talks. Therefore, you need to put as much care into it as you would into preparing the talk itself!
The proposal includes various elements to support the topic you want to discuss:
the title,
the description,
the theme/category: front-end, cloud, AI, etc.,
the format: conference, quickie, workshop, etc.,
notes and references for the organizers.
You obviously need to start by defining that topic! What will you talk about?
The Topic
Topics can be very diverse: sharing experience from a project, presenting a technology or method you like, simplifying a somewhat theoretical subject, creative use of tools or techniques, etc.
The crucial point is that the topic must interest you, excite you. This is what will enable you to put your heart into it, to be a storyteller, to convince the organizers and later engage the audience with you.
You obviously need to know the subject well, but you don’t need to be a world-class expert; knowing more than the majority of the audience is sufficient. Sharing your experience of learning something new can also be a fascinating topic!
“I want to talk about this, but it’s already been done.” First, not everyone watches every conference published on YouTube (we have to work too!). Second, your approach and your experience with the subject are unique. If the topic excites you, don’t hold back because of that!
You have your topic, let’s move on to writing the proposal. Note that it’s not necessary to prepare the talk before submitting the proposal: you should have its structure in mind, but you’ll only start writing if the proposal is accepted.
The Title
The title must be clear and establish the theme of your presentation. It’s what should catch attendees’ eyes as they scan the program.
Be cautious with puns, as their interpretation is often tied to a context that not everyone may share.
The Description
Good descriptions often have a similar structure:
the context,
the topic to be discussed: problem, novelty, experience sharing…
what you will cover,
what the audience will gain from your presentation.
You are obviously free to structure it as you wish, but this approach ensures that all important elements are present in a logical progression. Don’t hesitate to read descriptions from past conferences for inspiration on their structure!
Important point: the description is not a movie trailer, and you should not fear spoilers; quite the opposite. Organizers and attendees need to know what to expect, and there are no critics who have seen the talk in advance to give their opinion.
Notes for Organizers
Notes for organizers allow you to provide more details about yourself and your presentation. They help to better understand what you will bring to the audience.
Regarding your presentation, you can detail its outline, its positioning within its technical field, and also mention any specific needs, such as a table for a hardware demo, etc.
Regarding yourself, you can explain the context that leads you to make this proposal, provide references for the same talk at a previous conference, or for other talks you have given, whether at conferences or meetups.
If you are a first-time speaker, not having references is not a deal-breaker: the quality of the description and the enthusiasm that shines through will make the difference. Nevertheless, giving presentations at meetups before tackling conferences will give you valuable experience.
So, What Does It Look Like in Practice?
To illustrate this process concretely, let’s take Rémi Verchère’s talk at DevFest Toulouse 2024, who submitted a very good proposal.
Title
GPU in my containers!Description
After validating the POC for the latest AI project, with heavy requests to OpenAI, IT says stop: it’s impossible to send company information to a third-party service, we’ll manage our LLMs on our own Kubernetes clusters!
This requires, however, having GPUs (sic) for performance, accessible to containerized applications, but how does that work?! And GPUs are expensive, they are scarce, how to use them optimally without breaking the budget?
I propose we explore together how, thanks to the “NVIDIA GPU Operator,” we can access these famous GPUs: installation, configuration, interaction with the host, and kernel module management, but especially the constraints and various resource sharing modes (time-slicing, mig), and other cool add-ons like “node-feature-discovery” to make the best use of resources, all step-by-step.
After this session, my development teams will finally be able to have GPUs in their containers!
The title: catchy, precisely describes the subject.
The context: the desire to do AI while keeping company data secure.
The subject: how to use GPUs on Kubernetes?
What will be covered: the NVIDIA Kubernetes operator and its implementation.
What the audience will gain: the ability to use GPUs in containers.
This description also increases in technicality: the description is accessible to non-specialists of the subject, while offering an attractive overview for the more informed audience.
Rémi also included notes for the organizers:
Notes for organizers
Alternative title: “When are you putting GPUs in my container, Kevin?”I’m hesitating between the “Cloud / Infrastructure” track since it’s very related to GPUs and containers rather than AI concepts.
There’s a lot of talk about AI on the development side, but not enough on the “ops” side. The idea of this talk is therefore to show from an infrastructure perspective how it works in a containerized environment.
On a client project, I was able to conduct some experiments, which I think are worth sharing.
Finally, at KubeCon 2024, many AI topics were discussed, particularly regarding resource management issues, so this is a current topic!
Happy selection!
Proposing an alternative title is not a good idea: it’s your talk, you should make a choice! If a topic is selected by the organizers and they believe adjustments are needed, they will contact you. Besides, this second proposal is less effective: who is this Kevin? Why not Julien or Nico?
The question about the category is legitimate because the proposal indeed straddles two themes. While it’s rare for organizers to request changes to the text, it’s more common for them to change the category based on the conference’s editorial policy and also to balance topics (spoiler: AI, we have tons of proposals).
Then comes some context where Rémi explains that it’s also about sharing his experience, which supports his credibility to speak on the subject.
And he finishes with a small note for the organizers. It won’t change the evaluation, but it’s always nice.
Storytelling
Rémi’s description starts with a little story. The level of storytelling to include in a presentation or its description is a major debate. A little, a lot, not at all? Personally, I would say “in moderation”!
Storytelling helps anchor the narrative in a context, as if it were a real experience sharing. But it must remain light and serve the content. There’s no need to invent a new episode of Star Wars: if there’s too much embellishment, the audience will focus on the narration and, even if they had a good time, they will quickly forget diluted content.
And above all, overly developed storytelling can give evaluators the impression that the substance doesn’t match the style. It’s therefore a balance to work on and monitor.
Storytelling is particularly useful when you have multiple parts: it serves as the glue, the common thread that creates a coherent whole. An excellent example is Stéphane Trébel’s presentation on meta-laws, where Laurie’s adventures form a progressive whole.
Before Clicking “Send”
Then comes the fateful moment when you have to click “send.” Should I go for it, or not? Generally, you cannot modify your proposal after submitting it because it enters the review process. It’s always possible to ask the organizers, but it’s best to avoid it as much as possible.
Note: the tool we use for DevFest Toulouse allows you to modify your proposal for one hour after submitting it. Because we all know that it’s right after clicking that we spot a small thing to correct.
So before sending:
Proofread it yourself, and most importantly, have someone else proofread it. Other people can tell you if your proposal is understandable, coherent, and if it makes them want to attend.
Run your text through a spell checker! You might be fine with spelling, but proofreaders and audience members will notice mistakes, and that can affect their perception of your proposal.
And… click, it’s sent! Take a deep breath!
What Does a Bad Proposal Look Like?
Out of the 400 proposals received each year, nearly 90% are rejected. Many are high quality, but spots are limited. Others clearly need improvement, which partly motivated the writing of this article.
Do not submit proposals written by ChatGPT! It’s an excellent tool to overcome writer’s block, but the text must be yours. It’s your presentation, you are the one speaking! Proposals that “smell” too much of generated text have a high chance of being rejected outright.
Some proposals are surprising, like this one. Its author submitted 8 proposals in the same style on completely different topics. This actually led us to limit submissions to 3 proposals per person.
Title
What happens when the past meets the future?Description
What happens when make meets docker?Or, rephrased, what is the result of the union of a development tool over 50 years old with one of the most modern on the market?
Or again, what happens when software with a power unknown to most developers today is implemented alongside one of the most well-known?
And why do such a thing? Why marry a venerable 50-year-old with a 10-year-old pre-teen?
And if, for some unlikely reason, it is indeed relevant, how to do it?
How to combine Beauty and the Beast?
Are you interested in the answers to these questions?
Do you want to know if this is a romantic comedy or a horror story?
Then come! I have the answers to these questions!
What to think of this proposal? It will talk about make and Docker, but what else? It’s just a series of teasers in the form of questions that don’t provide any specifics. To learn more, you’ll have to come. Sorry, but it takes more than that to convince us to spend 45 minutes listening to answers to such vague questions on such an obscure topic.
Other proposals are quite impenetrable, like this one:
Title
RPA… is it a sweep-up car for IT processes to digitize?Description
RPA is booming.As if it were something new, all companies are starting to communicate about these famous “manual” processes that are being handled by RPA, “to lighten human tasks” and “give meaning back to managers’ actions.”
I say: it’s about time!
For over 40 years, some humans have been repeating these same automations to enter or control data!
What if RPA wasn’t just the last way to scrape the bottom of the barrel to finally move to full digitization?
But what is RPA? That’s the topic of the talk, and it’s not defined. Some acronyms like CPU and GPU don’t require definition, but this one is unknown to most organizers. As it seems to be an introductory talk, it should have started with that. And the notes for the organizers don’t help either; they still talk about RPA…
This is where the advice “have it proofread” could have helped improve the proposal. The author is clearly a specialist in the field who failed to put themselves in the shoes of the target audience. An external opinion would certainly have helped avoid this.
And one last one for the road:
Title
Cloud Native, the Hero You AreDescription
In order to highlight the challenges brought about by Cloud Native development, come and play the role-playing game of a Cloud Native developer. By putting yourself in the shoes of a developer of an application on the cloud, you have a few minutes with your colleagues to debate the advantages and disadvantages of solutions to common problems, while protecting the interests of your secret role.
The title defines the theme, but “the hero you are”? The description is essentially serious game-style storytelling, but we have no idea what will be presented. This is evident in the evaluation comments: “not enough detail,” “too vague,” “I don’t understand what it’s about,” and there are no notes for the organizers that could have provided the essential details.
It’s Your Turn Now!
With all these tips and examples, you are now equipped to write a great proposal for DevFest Toulouse 2025! So, get to your keyboards, the CFP opens on April 7th and runs until early June!
And if you’re not yet comfortable, DevFest Toulouse and the Toulouse communities are organizing a meetup called “Become a Speaker” on April 28th. It’s an opportunity to meet the team and experienced speakers!