Submitting a talk to DDD East Midlands 2023
Before you submit a talk you may want to read this blog on frequently asked questions.
Different conferences have different methods of submission. At DDD East Midlands we are using Sessionize as the tool for submission. Sessionize has a number of features that are great for us, including the ability to anonymise submissions.
The page to submit your talks to DDD East Midlands Conference 2023 is here.
In this piece, we will talk you through how to submit a talk using this tool.
Let’s walk through the form
About the talk
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Session title:
What it says on the tin. The title of your proposed talk.
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Description:
The description of your talk. Your proposal. This is where you describe what your talk is about and sell it to the people choosing it.
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Level:
What level of audience your talk is aimed towards. Is it high level or introductory? Does it involve some previous knowledge in the area?
This will be displayed on your talk description to help the attendees know if the session will be useful to them. This will affect if they vote for your talk and if they decide to attend it.
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Session Format:
What length of talk would you like to submit for? This is a multiple choice question, so if you think you can adapt your talk to different lengths, you can submit for multiple styles of session.
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Tags:
What general themes does your talk meet? You can select multiple categories in this section. It helps us if you restrict it to the categories already offered and if you don’t pick many of them - as it will make filtering more accurate and useful.
This is to help us organise the tracks later, but also when voting attendees can filter their views based on tags.
Notes
Tell us about any requirements you have or anything you wish to share.
For other conferences, you may want to add links to videos of other talks you’ve had previously so that the organisers they can see your presenting style. DDD East Midlands will be recording all videos so for future talks you can add these links into submissions to their conferences.
These notes will only be visible to the organisers of the conference.
About the speaker
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Speaker Name:
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Your name will be anonymised until you are selected to speak.
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Speaker Tagline:
One line about you. It might be your job title or it might be a cheeky line of description about you. This will be under your photo if you are selected.
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Email:
This will be pre-populated based on your login if you have an account with Sessionize.
It is also the primary way DDD East Midlands will get in contact with you, so please ensure it’s an email you check regularly.
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Speaker Biography:
Attendees will not be shown this until you are selected for a talk. The speaker biography will be used for when talks are selected and speakers are announced.
Biographies are hard. Who are you? What do you do? Look at some examples, get feedback from a friend or colleague, and try to keep it short.
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Speaker Photo:
A photo of yourself. It doesn’t need to be a professional headshot, it can even be a selfie. We would suggest that you don’t use a group photo.
This will be hidden from both organisers and attendees. If you are selected to speak, this photo will be used on our website and social media.
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Social Links:
- We ask for your social media links so in the event you get selected to speak we can tag you, share your blog and celebrate any online presence you have.
The extra questions
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Can we pass your details to local meetups?
In an effort to help our local meetups find amazing speakers we would like to give them your details and some overview on the talks you’ve submitted. Interested in speaking at a meetup? Then please select Yes!
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Speaking Experience:
This is for our own statistics and will not have an effect on your overall application. We want to know the range of experience our submission process attracts to help us with future events and initiatives.
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Interested in support:
There is a range of support DDD East Midlands conference offers to it’s speakers. This will have no reflection on your application. If you are selected you will be contacted about any support you indicate you are interested in.
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Preferred Pronoun
What is your preferred pronoun? How should we address you or refer to you as? This is to help us with any promotion around your talk if you are a selected speaker. We don’t want to assume gender or identity.
What does the anonymisation look like from your end?
Sessionize hides and changes details as part of anonymisation. It changes your name to something random and hides your avatar.
What we see:
- Talk title
- Description
- Level
- If you have indicated that you would like support
- Tags
What we will show voting attendees:
- Talk title
- Description
- Level
- Tags
After voting is completed, we will remove this setting as we will need to get in touch with all applicants.
After Submission
You can edit the details of your talk right until the end of the submission period (10th April 2023).
To do this log into the Sessionize portal and select the talk you wish to change and your changes will be applied upon save.
