Guidelines for Proposals

This Call For Proposals (CFP) includes two types of presentations:

1. Keynotes and Talks, located in the Main Theatre, present big ideas of general interest.
2. Tutorial Sessions, offered in three tracks, teach specific skills or topics.

All presentations will be recorded and published online after the conference.

Main Theatre Talks

Time limit: 25 minutes

Talks will be held in the Main Theatre December 7th and 8th. The audience will comprise Go programmers of all experience levels. There will be no questions from the audience as part of your time allotment.

Tutorial Sessions

Time limit: 45 minutes

Tutorial Sessions will be offered in three simultaneous tracks, three times per day, on December 7th and 8th. Because of their smaller size and self-selecting audience, Tutorial Sessions are ideal for technical discussions or teaching a specific skill or technique. There will be no questions from the audience as part of your time allotment.

Advice for Authors

Diverse Speaker Line-up

GopherCon values all voices from inside the Go community and that impacts how we choose the final speaker lineup.

First, we highly encourage first-time speakers or new Gophers to submit a proposal. When presented with two proposals of equal quality, priority will be given to a new speaker or new content that has not been presented previously.

Second, GopherCon actively encourages a diverse speaking panel. We will, at our discretion, fill some speaking slots from outside the CFP with invited speakers to make the overall content more interesting, diverse, and engaging for all our attendees.

Finally, all speakers selected for GopherCon will be assigned a speaking mentor from our pool of experienced speakers to provide coaching and support. While not required, we strongly recommend taking advantage of these mentors.

Talk Outline

The reviewers need to know that you’ve thought about how you’ll present the material. One of the best ways to show that is by including an outline of your talk, and we highly encourage that you do so, including rough timing for each section.

Personally Identifiable Information

Please do not link or provide any information in your proposal that will disclose your identity. Our judging process is double blind, and we strive to make our CFP process impartial. Submissions that disclose identifying information will, at our discretion, be disqualified or asked to make immediate changes before judging starts.

While PaperCall includes a section below for personal information, our reviewers will not have access to it. Any data you include there will not result in us choosing or disqualifying your proposal. It will only be used as a means of contacting you if your talk is selected.

Editing Your Proposal

You can edit your proposal at any time until the CFP closes. While we may ask for clarifying edits, once the CFP closes all proposals are final.

Proposal Length

Reviewers will rate your proposal based solely on the information you provide. You need to be as detailed as possible so they may gauge your knowledge of the topic and ability to deliver a compelling talk on that subject. Proposals will be reviewed based on the selection criteria below. Please demonstrate, as best as you can, that your proposal meets them, so our reviewers feel confident about recommending it. Please refer to this blog post for a description of what we need from you and note that one paragraph is definitely not sufficient and several paragraphs are barely sufficient. Keep in mind, there has never been a GopherCon proposal that hit all the criteria, yet was rejected because it was too long.

Selection Criteria

1. Relevance. The talk is relevant to the Go community. GopherCon is not a general software conference, our audience wants to hear about topics that relate to the Go programming language.
2. Clarity. You’ve clearly explained what you are going to talk about.
3. Correctness. You’ve demonstrated knowledge of your topic. You don’t have to be an expert, but you are expected to be speaking from experience. The best proposals clearly explain why the author is well suited to give the talk and/or what’s unique about their experience.
4. Achievability. You’ve thought about how to present your material in the time available. We recommend including an outline of your talk with your submission including approximate timing of each section.
5. Impact. What new idea, technique, tool, or information will you impart on the audience?

For comprehensive information on the selection criteria, please see the official GopherCon blog.

Tips for a Strong Conference Proposal

• Storytelling on Stage: The Basics (Kris Brandow)
• Submit a Talk to GopherCon! (Carolyn Van Slyck)
• How to write a successful conference proposal (Karolina Szczur)
• How to write a successful conference proposal (Dave Cheney)