The Call for Papers for TEK·X is finally over—with more than ten proposals submissions for each slot available in the schedule, our evaluation committee is hard at work preparing the best schedule for what promises to be a can’t-miss event for PHP developers in 2010.

In the meantime, however, we are happy to announce the opening of our online registration system—an easy, quick and efficient way to take advantage of our special early-bird pricing and discounted pricing—which, combined, can give you up to $300 in savings over our  at-the-door prices.

In fact, our online system even allows you to make hotel reservations for your attendees at our exclusive conference-only price, all in one convenient (and quick) transaction.

Today is the last day for our Call for Papers, which will close at midnight tonight.

This means that you still have a few hours left to wow us with that killer proposal you’ve been swirling in your head for weeks. Remember, if it’s a topic you think you would want to hear a presentation on, there’s a fair chance that other developers will find it interesting, too.

Interested? Then get your game hat on and read through our Call for Papers instructions and then submit your proposals using our automated system before the deadline!

The Call for Papers for TEK·X is very rapidly coming to an end—prospective speakers have until midnight EST on November 23rd to submit their proposals for consideration from our selection committee.

Submitting proposals is extra-easy with our automated submission system—all you need is one or more great ideas for a talk that PHP professionals will be interested in and a few minutes to type them up. Remember that your talks don’t need to necessarily be about PHP itself; as PHP developers ourselves, we recognize that the breadth of our knowledge must go well beyond the language into the entire ecosystem that surrounds it.

Good luck with your proposals—we look forward to receiving them.

As the Call for Papers progresses for TEK·X, it dawns on me that I have the distinct privilege of having participated in the Call and Acceptance process of all three of the major PHP conferences, ZendCon, the Dutch PHP Conference, and now TEK. Thinking back, this gives me a unique perspective on the process. Since I get a lot of questions about “how do I get my talk accepted,” I thought I would share some of what I have learned. Here are a few basic rules I have discerned.

Blog it out

This is more important for new speakers than for veterans with a track record. Make sure you blog regularly about your topic. When I was at Ibuildings, I encouraged all potential speakers to blog their talk first. This forces you to think your topic through and make sure you know what you are going to say. The second thing it does for you is give you a good feel for how much content you have.

The first point is for conference organizers. If they see a steady stream of content from you on your particular subject, they can make the determination on whether you will be able to present a good session. Regular blogging (and I don’t mean a spurt of blogs just before the CfP ends) shows that this is a topic that is interesting to you. Conference organizers look for speakers who want to talk on topics they are interested in, not just knowledgeable in.

The second point is just as important. If your session is 45 minutes and you can only come up with 20 minutes of content, you need to find another topic. The same goes for the other end of the spectrum, if you’ve been given 45 minutes, don’t take 50. The best speakers, the ones that get invited back each year, are the ones that don’t cause the organizers problems like going too long.

Blog your topic, blog it a lot, and blog it in depth. Show the organizers that you not only are proficient but are passionate about your topic.

Each conference is different

Regardless of what you might think, conference organizers don’t huddle together once a year and decide who gets to speak on what. Each conference is different and so are the criteria for selection. As luck would have it, each conference tells you exactly what they are looking for in the Call for Papers. For example, talks for last year’s DPC were specifically selected to appeal to advanced PHP developers. The topics, for the most part, were more advanced and there was very little in the way of “An introduction to…” sessions. ZendCon, on the other hand, is much more targeted towards developers working in a corporate environment. They have a lot more sessions on frameworks, IDEs and other tools that improve productivity in a corporate development team. tek has traditionally been a community oriented conferences. There are a good mix of beginner and advanced topics but tek steers clear of specialization, instead making sure that there is something for everyone.

When you are preparing your idea to submit to a conference, make sure you know the focus of the conference and that your talk is appropriate to that conference.

Some topics have experts

There are endless supplies of topics that can be presented at conferences. Some of them however, are dominated by a single speaker or at best two speakers. Take for example the topic of Unit Testing. It’s a popular topic these days, given the popularity of Test Driven Development. However, it’s a difficult topic to get accepted at PHP conferences because the community has a recognized expert, Sebastian Bergmann, author of PHPUnit. The same goes for speaking on Git, Travis Swicegood actually did “write the book” on Git and presents on it regularly at conferences. When Zend framework papers are submitted, they are measured against Matthew Weier O’Phinney, the Chief Architect of Zend Framework.

This is not to say papers submitted on one of these topics won’t get accepted just because they are not by the recognized expert. However, it is more difficult. Papers on these subjects and others with recognized experts in the field have to have a unique angle not being covered by the expert or they need to be complimentary to talks that the experts usually give. There is usually room in the schedule for multiple sessions on a single topic but not for the same content.
If there is already an expert on the topic you want to present on, review old conference schedules to see what they normally present on. Make sure your content is not already covered in their talks and when possible, play off of their topic and add value. If the expert usually presents an advanced course, submit a beginner’s course on the topic and note in the abstract that it would be a good precursor to the expert’s session.

Don’t try to go head to head with the expert, try to complement their session or present new material in a unique perspective.

Be interesting

Ok, you have found your topic, you are confident that it is appropriate for the conference and either there is no recognized expert on the topic or your perspective is unique enough so that it would be complementary. The next step is to get the attention of the selection committee. Here’s a secret, on each selection committee, there is usually only one person who gets paid to manage the process and vote on selections, everyone else is volunteering. Therefore it is important that you get their attention quickly or you will just be passed over. I’ll use one of my own abstracts as an example. For ZendCon09, I presented my “Design Patterns for PHP Developers” talk. I am not the recognized expert on this subject, Jason Sweat is as he wrote a book on it. However, I knew that Jason doesn’t usually speak at ZendCon so I felt safe in submitting it. To get the attention of the selection committee though, I had to be creative. My abstract for this talk was short and sweet.

A respectful jog through the temple of the Gang of Four and then discuss real world use of the most common 4-8 patterns.

I could have just as easily said something like:

In this talk we will discuss the attributes of 4-8 common design patterns and where applicable, show sample code to illustrate their use.

Both descriptions are accurate. The first one however, more properly conveys the attitude of the session. Yes, I present the information in a meaningful way but my personal style of presentation is more whimsical than serious. In the abstract, I tried to grab the selection committee’s action long enough for them to consider the session.

Take care in writing your abstracts because interesting abstracts get more attention than boring abstracts.

Be respectful of the rules

This one is a pet peeve of mine. The rules of the Call For Papers apply to everyone, even those inside the organization running the conference. On two of the conferences I’ve been involved in, I’ve been an employee of the company putting the conference on. In both cases (one more so than the other) after the Call for Papers was closed, employees would submit their sessions for consideration. In each case, I wrote a polite email to them, like I did to non-employees in the same situation, explaining that the Call for Papers was over and that their submission could not be considered. Needles to say, this usually did not make them or their managers happy but it was the right thing to do.

A CfP has an end date for a reason. It is a difficult task to sort through the submissions and put together a schedule that meets the needs of the attendees. It complicates that process greatly if, after some sessions are already selected, new ones are submitted and have to be evaluated. More importantly, it’s not fair to the submitters who did follow the rules and got their submissions in on time.

Make sure you read the rules for submissions, understand them, and follow them to the letter.

Conclusion

Following these guidelines will not guarantee you a speaking slot at any conference. They should however, increase your chances. In the end, it boils down to this.

• Do I know you as an expert on the topic?
• Is your topic relevant?
• Have you spoken somewhere before and was it on this topic?

Conference organizers have to feel comfortable that you will deliver a session that is valuable to their attendees.

Every year, our conferences are carefully handcrafted by a small team of dedicated artisans; some help with our content, while others make sure that all the little things that make a conference are in the right place at the right time. Some help us make our social events fun, while others make sure that the topics that we cover are relevant and useful to our attendees.

Let us, then, introduce you to this year’s team:

Arbi Arzoumani is in charge of all our logistics, attendee experience and art design. He is responsible for the entire logistical infrastructure of TEK·X, from signs to room arrangements, from catering to evening parties. We’ve thrown a lot of new challenges to him this year, and he’s promised to keep everyone updated on how things progress. You can follow him on Twitter as @arzoum.

Keith Casey is responsible for all the unconference activities and a member of the talk selection committee. Keith has become the “official unconference organizer” of the community and is also responsible for the unconference at ZendCon. His job consists of coordinating all the unconference activities, as well as handling the entertainment side of our social events (which, given php|tek’s history in that department, has to be the most difficult job of all). He’s @caseysoftware on Twitter.

Emanuela Corso handles all finance and customer management activities. She makes sure that we stay on budget (and, indeed, that we actually have a budget) and that all our attendees and speakers are properly registered and setup for worry-free conference enjoyment and participation. In that role, she also acts as our primary liaison with the conference venue. Her timeline on Twitter is @dandrea28.

Cal Evans is our External Advisor, a member of the selection committee and our new Master of Ceremonies. His job is to help us select the best possible topics and talks, as well as keep everyone entertained (and informed) while making sure that the talks of TEK·X progress smoothly and on time. You can follow Cal on Twitter as @calevans.

Cal blogs regularly at Postcards From My Life.

Marco Tabini is a member of the selection committee and primary maintainer of the TEK·X website. He is also responsible for interfacing with all our sponsors and ensuring that their needs are well catered to without compromising the technical quality that attendees have come to expect from our conferences. His twitter timeline is @mtabini.

Marco blogs at The Accidental Businessman.

The response to our call for papers has been tremendous—we’ve received over 100 proposals submitted in the first twelve hours alone. Best of all, they are coming from all around the world (and all around the web) and have been sent in both by familiar names and folks who are going to become familiar soon.

That’s tremendous feedback—and a tremendous responsibility for us to make TEK·X the best conference ever (going through all the proposals is also going to be a tremendous amount of work, but that’s work we love).

So, great job to all who have submitted so far—and if you are one of those who haven’t, why, now’s a really good time to head over to our submission system and enter a proposal or two before our Call for Papers expires on November 23rd.