Workshop: Submit a Talk to a Data Conference!

Interested in speaking at a conference but you never quite know what to speak about? Or planning to attend a conference, but thinking it would be extra fun to speak? Speaking at conferences (or local meetups!) is a fantastic way to get your ideas out there, help your career, and get to know others in the data community.

In this hands-on workshop, we'll start with a lighting talk by Chiu-Ki Chan of the fantastic Technically Speaking (https://tinyletter.com/techspeak) newsletter. She'll give her advice on planning for and delivering technical talks.

After that we will brainstorm potential talk ideas. We'll follow this excellent article (http://lucybain.com/blog/2016/conference-proposal-ideas/) on generating talk ideas, and have everyone answer pointed questions (Questions include: Think back to a year ago. What would you have wanted to know? What advice would you need? What’s a talk you’d want to see at this conference?).

Once everyone has generated ideas, we can share ideas to gain feedback about what sounds interesting to others. This will help you narrow down all of you potential talk topics to ideas that speak to others.

Finally, we will go through the process of writing up a short 4-5 sentence abstract that will be all ready to submit to a conference. Feeling inspired? Then submit a proposal to the upcoming Rocky Mountain Data Con (http://www.rockymountaindatacon.com/) in November. Or another conference of your choice.

This will be a fun and educational event, hope to see everyone there!

The workshop will be moderated by Diana Pfeil and Sara Bates and will include a short talk by Chui-Ki Chan.