There are three types of proposals at DevOpsDays Houston:

• A 30-minute “long-form talk” presented during the conference, usually in the mornings.
• A 60-minute workshop during the conference, usually in the afternoons.
• An Ignite talk presented during the Ignite sessions (scheduling varies). These are 5 minutes slots with slides changing every 15 seconds (20 slides total). All sessions will be recorded for future availability.

Choosing a talk is part art, part science; here are some factors we consider when trying to assemble the best possible program for our local audience:

• Broad appeal: How will your talk play out in a room of people with a variety of backgrounds? Technical deep dives need more levels to provide value for the whole room, some of whom might not use your specific tool.
• New local presenters: You are the only one who can tell your story. We are very interested in the challenges and successes being experienced in our local community. We are happy to provide guidance/coaching for new speakers upon request. First time speaker? We would love for you to contribute even if you are new to public speaking, our team can help you with coaching through the process if selected.
• Underrepresented voices: We want to hear all voices, including those that may speak less frequently at similar events. Whether you’re in a field not typically thought of as a technology field, you’re in a large, traditional organization, or you’re the only person at your organization with your background, we are interested in your unique experience.
• Original content: We will consider talks that have already been presented elsewhere, but we prefer talks that the local area isn’t likely to have already seen. No third-party submissions: This is a small community-driven event, and speakers need to be directly engaged with the organizers and attendees. If a PR firm or your marketing department is proposing the talk, you’ve already shown that as a speaker you’re too distant from the process.
• No vendor pitches: As much as we value vendors and sponsors, we are not going to accept a talk that appears to be a pitch for your product. This is what we would like to learn about, do you have any experiences and/or knowledge you can share? Focus on new topics: new methods, new technology, new techniques. Don’t recycle old talks or topics the audience has seen before.

These are some topic suggestions from our 2021 program:

• Shift Left Security Concerns: DevSecOps is Pronounced DevOps: The Sec is Silent
• Practical Guide to Not Building Another (DevOps) Silo
• An Execution Framework for Successful DevOps Transformation
• Service Mess to Service Mesh
• Games We Play to Improve on Incident Response
• Don’t Rely on Metrics Alone - Strategies for Continuous Improvement
• Adding Reproducible Experiments To Your Machine Learning Pipeline

Rules:

• Be specific… we aren’t mind readers (a description of about 20 lines is about right)
• Detail is good… but not as important as explaining why your proposal would be interesting
• Propose your own talk; don’t have someone else do it for you.
• Nominations welcome … if you know someone who has content/experience relevant to the DevOps conversation, please point us in their direction! Email the organizers to recommend someone! This goes double for under-represented voices in the DevOps community!
• Multiple proposals welcome… just follow the other rules

Advice:

We highly recommend reading “Why Your Excellent Conference Talk Was Rejected” by Sarah Gray.. Presenters that follow this advice are much more likely to have their proposal accepted.