New Speakers (call for papers) workshop

WHY THIS WORKSHOP?
The Agile community in South Africa is vibrant and what makes it so is all the new people that join it year after year. Alison Gitelson and I were talking the other day about submitting to conferences, and the conversation led to wanting to see new speakers on the Scrum Gathering programme. I remember the first time I submitted a conference proposal - let me just say that it could have been better. Needless to say, I didn’t get selected. I learned from that… submitted again the following year and this time got accepted. If I’d received help during the process I might have been chosen the first time around. So this workshop is to provide the help you need if you’re thinking of submitting a conference talk for the first time (or the second time or the third time…).

Even if you’re not thinking of submitting…come along anyway…you might be inspired to submit. Or perhaps you have an idea for a proposal that is swimming around in your head - come along and we’ll help you refine it - it could be turned into a lightning talk, a longer talk or a workshop!
On Saturday 2 June, SUGSA is hosting a Call For Papers workshop to help new speakers develop their conference proposal. If you’re new to conference speaking, you’ve never spoken at a conference before, or maybe you have… or have an idea that is not completely formed yet… please join us for this half-day interactive workshop to help you craft an awesome proposal submission. (The Scrum Gathering ZA Call for Papers has gone out and the closing date is 30 June)

WHAT WILL HAPPEN ON THE DAY
We’ll start off with a brief and interactive talk on what makes a good conference submission to help you leverage off of people who have been part of selecting talks and of course, by people who are regular conference speakers. After that, we’ll go through the proposal submission format and what to look out for, tips and tricks and what you need to include. After tea, we’ll have some ideation time followed by some work on your proposal. We’ll end off the day with a pitch panel for those of you who want to test your ideas with your peers and more experienced speakers.

Programme:
8:00 - 9:00: Refreshments
9:00 - 9:15: Connections
9:15 - 10:00: What makes a great conference submission
10:00 - 10.30: Go through the proposal submission format
10:30 - 10:50: Tea, muffins, coffee, and fruit
10:50 - 11:30: Group ideation 1
11:30 - 13:00: Draft proposal preparation, and pitching to the panel

THE COST
NOTHING! - The venue is kindly sponsored by MMI Holdings, and the refreshments are kindly sponsored by agile42.

Please help the organisers to cater for the correct numbers by using the RSVP function.

WHAT TO DO BEFORE THE WORKSHOP To prepare for the workshop:

1. Please go here - https://www.papercall.io/sgza - to see what the Scrum Gathering organisers expect, to sign up for an account to the submission system, and to look through the proposal format.

2. If you haven’t already done so, start thinking about what you want to share and bring those ideas to the workshop on 2 June.

The workshop is kindly hosted by Regina Martins from agile42 on behalf of SUGSA.
She can be contacted at 0836340426
regina.martins@agile42.com