Convince Your Boss Template

Need a little help persuading a manager to let you attend php[tek]? We’ve seen similar templates like this for other conferences and thought it could be useful.

Dear _(amazing boss)_,

I’d like to kindly ask for your approval to attend php[tek] 2023 (tek.phparch.com), which will take place in Chicago on May 16-18, 2023.

php[tek] has been running for 15 years and only stopped during the pandemic. Unlike big-scale conferences, which often have subpar sessions and a lot of time is lost moving from one huge hall to another, php[tek] is quite small (200-400 people) and hence very focused and well-curated. They’ve been known for a strong commitment to very practical sessions and attention to today’s best practices.

Advantages for our company

The learnings from three conference days will help our company to:

  • Design better processes to design, build, debug and deploy faster,
  • Improve performance and responsiveness of our web properties,
  • Increase web security and reduce our surface area for attacks,
  • Improve accessibility and flexibility of our front-end architecture,
  • Set up a proper strategy for maintainable design systems, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time.
  • Adhere to today’s best practices in web development
  • Improve automated testing to reduce bugs that make it into production

My personal advantages

I sincerely appreciate the opportunities to grow as a professional in our company, and I’m very excited about this conference because:

  • There’s an impressive line-up of experts who are working with technologies, tools and methodologies we use daily,
  • Being able to listen to experts will give me an opportunity to learn new practices and techniques and improve my skills right away,
  • The friendly, intimate spirit of the conference make it easy to interact with speakers and ask questions,
  • As the conference attracts seasoned designers and developers, I’m excited to learn from a large number of professionals and discover their experiences and best practices from their projects,

Summary of costs (Conference only)

ItemExpense
Conference fee (Blind Bird Pricing)$500
Hotel / AirBnB$450 (for 3 nights)
Flight$300-$600
Ground transportation$50
Food$100
Total$1,400 – $1,700

On a personal note, I’ve been following PHP Architect for years now. The monthly magazine they release has been around for more than 20 years, and it’s been my trusted source for cutting-edge development practices that helped me grow as a professional in the industry. I feel confident that I’ll bring back a ton of useful notes and takeaways for the team, and I’m looking forward to improving our efficiency and reducing unnecessary costs. The conference also provides slides and videos of presentations that we could use internally as well.

I’d appreciate you considering my letter, and I hope you have a moment to take a look at the website — tek.phparch.com — and the overview of topics covered there. I couldn’t be more excited to attend this one, and I’m quite certain that it’s a good investment in training for our entire company.

Thank you for your time.

— Yours truly __(your name)__,
an employee, passionate about learning and improving our work.